Book 55: The Difference
by DinosaurNothlit
Summary: The Animorphs manage to escape the One, only to find themselves facing a new enemy. But the line between enemy and friend is sometimes a blurry one, and tolerance and understanding are not always appreciated. FINISHED! Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 (Ax)

My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. I suspect that most who read this will have heard of me, so I need not elaborate upon my past circumstances. I have become quite well-known, among both Andalites and humans, since the end of the great Yeerk war. If you have not heard of me, suffice it to say that I am an Andalite, but for three years I fought alongside the famous group of human children known as the Animorphs.

But that was long ago. Now I was back among my own people. On a mission to find and destroy the Blade Ship, a deadly threat to any peaceful world. A vessel that carried the last remnants of the Yeerk Empire.

This mission had gone terribly wrong when my ship, the _Intrepid_, had happened upon a strange alien craft. The craft, which we had assumed to be dead, had suddenly fired upon my ship. I was not aboard my ship when this happened. I, and a handful of my crew, had already boarded the alien craft. We were looking for a small amount of earth DNA, which turned out to be a few strands of fur. Polar bear.

The fur had been the bait in a trap. And, like a fool, I'd walked right into it.

I watched through a small window as the _Intrepid_ pulled away, leaving me and what remained of my crew stranded. Abandoned aboard a strange, alien, and very hostile craft. I knew that the departing _Intrepid_ took with it my best chance for survival. Perhaps my only chance.

So much the better. I now had nothing to lose. I would die with honor, alongside my fellow warriors. The best end I could have wished for.

But, regardless of my dismal chances of survival, I was not dead yet.

((Follow me!)) I yelled to the rest of my boarding crew, a good force of more than twenty Andalites. I trotted down a hallway, towards the center of the ship. ((The bridge will be at the center!)) I continued as I ran, ((If we encounter no one else on this ship, we should be able to override the autopilot. And if it turns out that someone is on board with us, then we shall override them!))

As the _Intrepid_ began to accelerate away, I sent a private message to Menderash. ((Jake! Menderash, find Jake, tell him what's happened!)) I yelled at the top of my voice, hoping against hope that Menderash would hear at least the word _Jake_. It was strange. Even now, even after having been among my fellow Andalites for the past three years, it was a human that I trusted more than any Andalite to come to my aid. If I died, I trusted Jake to take up my mission where I had left off. And if, by some miniscule chance, I survived this mission, then I would be grateful to serve under my former prince once more.

I led my crew of Andalites deeper and deeper into the ship. I could feel the ship's acceleration in the floor beneath my hooves, but I did not have time to worry about whatever battle might be going on in space around the alien ship I was in. No time to worry, only time to find a way to join the battle ourselves.

Finally, after having run an exhausting distance, a span of seemingly endless corridor at least the length of a Dome Ship, we reached the bridge. As I predicted, it was at the heart of the alien ship's gigantic star-burst shape.

But there was no one there. It appeared that the ship had powered up and fired upon the _Intrepid_, all on its own. Was it possible that such a behemoth of a ship could be controlled by remote?

No time to worry about that now. I jumped to the nearest station, and ordered my technicians to do the same. As I worked to make sense of the unfamiliar interface, the panel began to glow. Before long, the entire bridge was glowing with intense, searing light.

A deep, mind-filling voice greeted me. The voice somehow went beyond spoken speech. Beyond thought-speak.

"Hello, little Andalites," it said tauntingly. Mockingly. "Brave, valiant, noble little Andalites. Weaklings. Bravery is not enough anymore. Courage means nothing for the weak. Power is all. I am all. I am the One. You, pitiful creatures, you are nothing."

The light was even brighter now. So bright that closing my eyes made no difference. I saw nothing but blazing, searing white.

I could see only one thing through the white inferno. A shifting, perpetually changing face. I saw it as much with my mind as with my eyes.

"Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. War-hero. Prince. The Great Aximili. You will make a worthy hostage. Yes, you I will take. The rest of you will die."

As the creature spoke, I began to feel my own body dissolve. My arms, my legs, my body, began to feel vaporous and indistinct, as if I were a ghost. As if the light were tearing my very atoms apart, but without pain. I cannot truly describe it, but I could sense myself fading. My mind, too, was growing weak. I tried to lash out with my tail at this hideous creature, but I already knew that I barely even had a tail left to strike with. And I didn't even know where to aim. How can you strike out at light?

The One only laughed at my efforts. "Do not embarrass yourself with your pitiful resistance," it said. "You are becoming a part of me. There is nothing you can do to stop it."

((Vile abomination!)) I shouted with what was left of my mind. My thought-speak was barely a whisper.

The One merely laughed again. "You ought to be honored, Andalite. There are not many creatures left in this galaxy that are even worth taking. I consider you worthy, Aximili. Although I doubt you will consider that to be any consolation."

That was the last thing I heard as my mind and body vanished into the world-consuming light.

* * *

Animorphs characters and universe do not belong to me, as much as I might wish they did. They belong to Katherine Applegate. Got it?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 (Ax)

It took me a very long time to rationalize the strange place where I found myself. If it was truly a 'place' at all. My mind was still faded and faint, but, if I focused with all my will, I could stay conscious. Stay focused. But it was very difficult. My thoughts were those of a dream.

I was drifting through a hazy dream scape. Nothing was distinct. My surroundings somehow _felt_ grey, but when I tried to focus on what color things actually were, the colors would shift and change.

I could sense other people here with me, but I saw no one. Although, in this indistinct, hallucinatory place, it was hard to be sure if I actually _saw_ anything at all. Was I blind? Impossible to say. Was it all just a trick of my own imagination? I did not know.

I might have been drifting through this dreary prison for a minute or a millennium. It felt like years, at least, but time held little meaning here. I had nothing against which to measure time, not even so much as the beat of my hearts or sensation on my skin. Even my innate, Andalite sense of time was disrupted.

After what felt like an eternity, having to continually focus my mind to keep myself from fading into the dream, I began to realize I could see outside my prison. There were images, sounds in the haze. But they came and went, flickered in and out.

"Save your tricks for this Yeerk fool," I finally managed to hear. The sound faded out. I strained to listen. Then I saw, through the haze, the bridge of a ship. The Blade Ship? Couldn't be sure. Then I heard, or thought I heard, the One's terrible voice.

"Jake the Yeerk-killer," it mocked.

Jake! He was here. My prince was here to rescue me.

My sudden surge of anxiety brought reality into sharp focus for the first time in months. No, no, no! He couldn't be here! I had to find a way to make him turn back! I had called him before I had known about the One. I would never have asked his help if I had known the danger.

I had led my prince into a trap. Just as I had done for the crew of the Intrepid.

((Prince Jake! Turn back!)) I tried to shout. ((Do not let the One take you as well!)) But I knew that he couldn't hear me. Knew that my thought-speak could not reach outside the confines of the One's dreamlike prison for me.

((GET AWAY!)) I cried, pouring every ounce of energy I had into those two words. But my voice didn't even reach beyond my own body.

"Stupid Andalite," the One sneered at me, in a voice only I could hear. "You know perfectly well he can't hear you. Ha HA! He's about to kill himself trying in vain to kill me! Oh, this is a glorious day!"

((Why are you doing this? Who are you? What are you?)) I demanded of the One. ((You capture me and hold me hostage, even though you claim to be so much more powerful than me. And now you gloat triumphantly over the death of a mere human. What are you?))

I did not truly expect the One to answer my questions. I expected it to tell me not to concern myself with things that weren't my business. At the very least, I expected it to give me a short, cryptic answer.

I did not expect that I would suddenly see, as though a revelation had in a dream, all that the One was.

In the blink of an eye, I saw his story.

The One had surprisingly humble beginnings. It had begun as a super-weapon of the Kelbrid race, used to defend their borders. The One was, at that point, nothing more than a concentration of radiation and energy that had been given intelligence through advanced Kelbrid technology. The Kelbrid programmed it to intimidate their enemies, to take hostages, and, when it would be a waste of effort to take hostages, to kill.

But their weapon had evolved over the years. It began to absorb the intelligence, the thoughts, the emotions of those it captured. Later, it learned to assimilate their abilities and appearances, as well. The One eventually evolved beyond anything the Kelbrid could control. Its knowledge and power went far beyond anything the Kelbrid had originally given it. Far beyond anything they could have predicted.

Of course, the One rebelled against the Kelbrid. As does almost any slave who discovers itself more powerful than its master. Many Kelbrid died in their efforts to stop the One, but it could not be killed by any conventional means. It won its freedom by force, through cruelty and bloodshed. And so, with only its programmed instincts to intimidate, capture, and kill to guide it, the One attempted to find its own way in the universe.

Much more recently, the One had allied itself with the Yeerks. It had been searching, for years, in near-desperation, for a cause, a driving purpose to commit itself to. A reason for its own existence. Something besides the mindless killing and assimilating that was all it knew how to do. The Yeerks provided the cause. The great Yeerk Empire was the One's new purpose, and it would willingly cooperate with the Yeerks for such a worthy goal as conquest and enslavement. In exchange, the Yeerks worshiped the One. The One had gone from being the slave to the master.

I blinked, my weakened mind overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information.

It was a sad creature. A creature without a true place, without a purpose. A tool of the Kelbrid that had outgrown its use. Suddenly, and without quite realizing it, I pitied it.

The One read my emotions even before I did. "I did not ask for your pity, inferior. You asked what I am, and I gave you an answer. Now be quiet, Andalite, and do not pass judgment on what you do not know."

The One left me alone after that.

For a while, I drifted in and out of consciousness. I do not know how long.

I was brought back to what passed for reality by a startlingly loud sound.

TSEEEEEWW.

A flash of red.

TSEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW.

Not just a flash this time. A sustained glow of red light. It seemed to burn brighter and brighter, as if it were burning through the walls of my incorporeal prison.

Suddenly, without warning, everything around me was chaos! Pieces of my hazy dream world became suddenly sharp and clear, while other parts seemed to turn themselves inside out. Everything around me was shifting and warping and twisting and melting and shattering and reforming. I could not even begin to make sense of it all. Light began to pour in. Bright, blinding, white light.

"Insolent humans!" the One raged at an unseen foe. "You have won, this time, but you have achieved nothing beyond keeping your own lives. You have not defeated me."

With that, the blinding white light faded. I was no longer a ghost in a dream. I was an Andalite, my mind and body sharp and solid once more. I had finally awakened from the nightmare. I found myself surrounded by the beautifully sharp clarity of black space and bright stars.

((Ah!)) I cried, surprised to feel the sudden pain in my chest, the first pain I had felt in a long time. I tried to gasp, only to find that no air came. I could not breathe!

Air! I gasped again for it, but my lungs collapsed in upon themselves with each attempt at a breath. I kicked my legs, instinctively trying to move myself back to the nearby ruins of the Blade Ship, which drifted, nearly destroyed, only a few feet away from me. But I knew it was futile.

((NO!)) I shouted in frustration. I was finally freed from the One, only to find that I was about to die in the cold airless depths of space.

As my newly-restored mind began to fade yet again, this time from cold and asphyxiation, I thought I heard a voice. I was almost certain I imagined it.

((Ax!)) the voice said.

It was Tobias's voice I heard, calling out to me, as the darkness took hold of my mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 (Jake)

"Ram the Blade Ship."

Tobias shot a fierce glare at me, but said nothing. He didn't need to. I got his meaning loud and clear. He didn't need to say that he didn't approve of my playing God with all of our lives.

But I didn't care what he thought. I was the one who took responsibility for making these decisions. Not him.

My name is Jake. You've heard of me. Jake the Yeerk-killer. Fearless Jake. Jake the thirteen-year-old general.

Of course, I'm twenty now. Things have changed so much since back when this war first started. I don't have to tell anyone who I am anymore, for one thing. I'm Jake, leader of the Animorphs. The rest is history, as the old cliche goes.

But a few things haven't changed. I'm still the one making the big decisions when someone needs to. Still putting my life and my friends' lives on the line, in the hope that the gamble will pay off in the end.

Menderash looked sideways at me. Waited for some confirmation that I was actually asking him to ram the Blade Ship, that I wasn't joking. That I wasn't insane.

I nodded, giving him my okay. No, I wasn't joking.

And I hoped I wasn't insane, either.

The _Rachel_ hurtled forward. There was no feeling of acceleration, but it was tough to shake the feeling that there should have been one, as we hurtled at impossible speeds.

The One was still on our viewscreen. It looked distracted, like it was talking to somebody else. When it did see us speeding toward it, it only grinned. It wasn't afraid of us.

The distance between us and the Blade Ship closed at a startling speed. Then, at the last possible second, the Blade Ship swerved suddenly to the side. The _Rachel_ blew past. A miss. But our ship could turn faster than the Blade Ship could. The _Rachel_ turned, and fired on the Blade Ship from behind.

TSEEEEW.

The blast bounced harmlessly off of the Blade Ship's force fields.

"Menderash! Quick, try ramming it again! Before it turns!" I snapped.

We hurtled forward again, but the Blade Ship was turning around to face us. Closer, closer, we raced.

Again, the Blade Ship rolled to the side. This time, I heard a scraping sound as the _Rachel_'s wingtip brushed against the Blade Ship's force field.

TSEEEEW.

As we blew past, the Blade Ship shot at us. A miss. We were moving too fast for them to get a lock on us.

"New plan. Fire continuously at them. We'll weaken their force field. But keep us moving, avoid their fire. Once their field is gone, we ram them again."

It was a desperate gamble. The _Rachel_ was a wasp pitted against a hawk. We had the manuverability, but the only weapon we had was a stinger. If the hawk so much as touched us, we were dead.

Menderash's piloting skills were admirable, even by Andalite standards. He dived and dodged, feinted and turned, a whirling dervish that the Blade Ship couldn't hit. All the while, Dracon crossfire shot back and forth.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Marco said.

We kept it up for a while. And we landed a few good hits on the Blade Ship, all the while managing to avoid its shots.

"You are quite an annoyance, humans, but I grow tired of this game," the One said through the viewscreen. "Let's make things a little more interesting, shall we?"

As I watched, the entire Blade Ship began to glow with the One's light. The entire ship shifted from the darkest black to the brightest white. A brilliant star in the shape of a battle-ax.

A gigantic plume of white-hot energy suddenly shot out from the Blade Ship's bridge, like a liquid stream of blinding white light.

We swerved to the left, but it was as if the energy had anticipated our move. It turned even before we did, moving to cut us off.

"Reverse!" I yelled, but it was too late. Our forward momentum plowed us right into the blindingly white wall.

The walls of the _Rachel_ began to glow from the contact. "Get us out of here!" I ordered Menderash. The _Rachel_ shot backwards, out of the One's reach.

"It was draining our power," Menderash reported. "We have enough power left for either one more surge of the engines, or maybe two Dracon shots."

The radiant white Blade Ship turned to face us. It picked up speed, hurtling towards us. Knowing we were almost helpless.

"This ends now," the One said.

"Indeed it does," I answered. "Menderash. He wants a head-on collision, give him one."

Menderash turned the _Rachel_ to face the Blade Ship. We hurtled forward.

The Blade Ship hurtled forward.

"I can't watch," Marco whimpered, covering his eyes.

The two ships sped closer, closer.

"Dracon beam! Now!" I yelled, right before we hit. "Divert any power this ship has left to the weapons!"

TSEEEEEW.

BOOOOM.

There was an earth-shattering crash that shuddered through both ships and knocked me off my feet. Metal smashed into metal. Steel twisted and deformed under the force of the collision. The two ships locked, meshed together by twisted steel.

The One's white light now nearly surrounded us. And that light was growing, stretching. It was trying to envelop the _Rachel_!

"Dracon this thing until it fries!" I ordered, getting to my feet.

"How? We have no power," Menderash said simply.

I looked around, thinking frantically. I needed a plan, fast.

The One's light grew brighter and brighter around us.

"That thing's made out of energy!" I cried suddenly, having a revelation. "Can you siphon off some of it for our Dracon?"

Menderash said nothing, but worked feverishly at the controls. The light was almost all around us, now. I could barely open my eyes against the glare.

TSEEEEEEEEEEWWW.

The Dracon beam pierced deep into the One's glaring white light. And kept going.

"Don't let up!" I shouted over the continuous noise of the laser.

At first, there appeared to be no effect. The Dracon's red light shone steadily, pumping its destructive energy right into the core of the One.

I could somehow see the One's face in the midst of all the glare. Shifting from one visage to another, faster and faster. Like a slide show on overdrive. The last face I saw was Ax's.

Then, there was a shattering wave that rippled across the blinding mass of light, breaking it up into millions of tiny pinpoints. The One's blinding sea of white broke apart into a beautiful nebula of tiny stars, which fell away from the Blade Ship and the _Rachel_ like beads of water.

"Insolent humans! You have won, this time, but you have achieved nothing beyond keeping your own lives. You have not defeated me."

The points of light flickered and dimmed.

I don't know if it was my imagination, but, among the thousands of glittering pinpoints of white, I could have sworn I saw one that was blue.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 (Tobias)

The One was gone.

Ax was gone.

((Ax!)) I screamed, refusing to believe that he couldn't hear me. That he might never hear me again.

He couldn't be gone. He just couldn't be. After all these years we spent fighting Yeerks together, it was inconceivable that he might be dead. Inconceivable! Impossible!

Especially now. Now that the war was long since over, now that I was finally just beginning to think I could be free from the pain of war and violence. The terrible knowledge of my own weakness. The weight of so much death on my shoulders.

Stupid of me to think I could ever be free from all that. To make believe that, now that the war was finally over, all the pain and despair and death would end.

Had I actually begun to think that I could ever find peace?

My name is Tobias.

Hawk. Human. I'm sure you already know the story. I'm sure you've heard the tragic tale about the boy who gave up his humanity in exchange for a set of wings. Who spent more than two hours as a red-tailed hawk and then was a hawk forever. Who made this terrible sacrifice so he could fight a war, fight for the freedom of the world and for the memory of his father. To keep fighting, never to accept the surrender that was to be human again.

Or maybe he'd never made a sacrifice. Maybe he wanted to be a hawk, wanted to run away from his human life, even if he could never quite admit it, even to himself. Maybe he never became human again, not simply so that he could stay in the fight, but because that had never been the life he wanted.

Nobody really knows for sure.

Neither do I. And I doubt I ever will.

All I knew was that I'd suddenly lost another one of the tenuous threads tying me to humanity. Someone who had not even been human. Yet, who had in some strange way been far more human than I was.

I felt a cold wave of fury at Jake. He had given the orders that had killed the only two people I had ever really cared about. First Rachel. Now Ax.

And his decision could still prove responsible for the death of the rest of us, before long.

SCREEEEEE!

A screech of metal against metal penetrated my thoughts. The groan of bending steel was accompanied by a whistle of wind, rising and rising until it was an overpowering hurricane.

WeeeooooOOOOSH!

The air was escaping from our wrecked ship!

The Blade Ship and the _Rachel_, their huge masses now rebounding from their catastrophic collision, were pulling away from each other. Pulling away from the crumpled, entangled mass they had become.

And in doing so, they would tear each other apart!

Jake instantly snapped into action. "Marco! Jeanne! Try to use the weapons to seal the _Rachel_'s hull. Menderash and Santorelli, see what you can do to get some power to the engines and weapons. Tobias, come with me. We're finding the emergency air tanks," he yelled over the din of tearing metal, already having to gasp for air against the dwindling wind.

But Jake's orders were soon rendered useless. As the two ships powerlessly drifted apart, something must have snagged. The battle-ax end of the Blade Ship, the part that had remained undamaged by the collision, suddenly swung around. It seemed to move in slow motion, gracefully sweeping towards us until its blade-like wing buried itself into the Rachel's metal skin.

BOOM! SCREEEEEECH!

The familiar scream of twisting steel was accompanied by another hiss of escaping air and a crackle of electricity. Suddenly the artificial gravity was gone. With it, the last of our air.

I was floating, helpless, my lungs crying out for precious oxygen. I couldn't breathe! The air was being sucked out of my throat every time I tried to draw a breath. Air! I flapped my wings uselessly, panicking but going nowhere. There was nothing for my wings to push against. I could see a computer panel not more than a foot from my beak, but I could not reach it.

((Ax!)) I screamed again. As if he could hear me. As if he could help us.

Already my vision was clouding over, the lack of oxygen and the paralyzing cold quickly sapping my strength. It was already too late to morph. It was already too late to do anything.

I looked out the window, past the struggling bodies of Jeanne and Santorelli, both screaming soundlessly in the vacuum, and thought I saw a glint of silver outside. A flicker of hope. Was it another ship? Would they save us?

Was it even really there, or was my dying mind just making up another pathetic false hope for me to hang on to? Trying to keep me safe from reality right up until the very moment I died?

No. It was gone. If it had even been there in the first place.

This was it, I realized. The end.

This realization filled me, not with fear, but with an unexpected sense of calm. There was nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to fight. No reason I had to go on being strong.

I could finally surrender to my own weakness. No one was left to judge me for it.

Sweet, sweet surrender.

I closed my eyes and peacefully waited for my life to end.

* * *

Note: As usual, everything belongs to K.A.A. But I also want to give a little credit to John Denver. The second to last line of this chapter is taken from the lyrics of one of his songs.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 (Marco)

I woke up on a cold, steel floor, immediately greeted by a throbbing headache. I tried to move, to get up from my uncomfortable position on the floor, only to discover that I had a broken rib. The injury sent a jolt of pain through my chest every time I breathed. Not fun.

But hey, at least I was alive, which was way better than what I had been expecting.

By the way, my name is Marco. I'm sure you've heard of me. But just in case you've been living under a rock for the past three years and four chapters, I can tell you that I'm the sexiest member of the Animorphs, the now-renowned team of animal-morphing superheroes. That's all I can tell you because . . . oh wait. Nevermind. We won that war. So I probably _could_ tell you a lot more about me, but I won't. Gotta keep the tabloids guessing, you know? Just know that I can turn into animals, fight aliens, and unfailingly wind up in some of the most bizarre situations imaginable.

This seemed like it could be another one of those situations. I looked around, trying to turn my head with as little movement as possible, only to find myself in some sort of containment room. Like a jail cell, with solid steel walls all around. I saw Jake, Santorelli, and Jeanne in the room with me. Jake was sitting up and looking around, looking, like me, as if he had just been roused from unconsciousness. Santorelli and Jeanne were still out cold, but breathing. No sign of Tobias or Menderash.

I got up into a sitting position, managing to ignore the pain in my rib (I'd had worse, after all), and gave the room a more thorough check. But it was no use. Tobias and Menderash weren't here. Oh, God, could they be . . .

I looked at Jake, and he just shook his head and looked away, wearing that same worried expression I'd seen on his face so many times during the war. It's that look he has when he's just made a decision that might have gotten one of his teammates killed.

So I guess he didn't know if Tobias and Menderash were alive, either.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to find something else to worry about, to take my mind off of my missing comrades. I looked around, trying to see out of the tiny air holes in our solid steel cell, hoping to see if there was anything out there that I should be wary of. Not seeing anything terribly threatening (although not really seeing much at all), I decided to risk a morph to fix my broken rib and whatever other injuries I might have sustained. I quickly morphed gorilla, one of my favorite animal forms. I watched as black fur spread up my arms and down my legs. I felt the familiar rush as by shoulders bulked up into those of a body builder. My face bulged out into an ape's muzzle. My canine teeth grew. My exposed skin became tough as leather.

Once I was whole again, I demorphed. I was just watching the last of the black fur recede when Santorelli and Jeanne began to stir.

They were both morphing to repair their own injuries, Jeanne to eagle and Santorelli to wolf, when I heard a wonderfully familiar thought-speak voice.

((Ugh . . . what the? Where am I? What the heck happened? Hey, Marco, Jeanne, Menderash, can anybody hear me?)) Tobias. Sounding grumpy. But he also sounded shaky. Like he was deeply upset about something.

Of course, we all knew to pretend that nothing was wrong. Anything we said to him would only make it worse. Tobias is like me in that way. He doesn't take pity well.

But, regardless of whatever personal problems he was going through, I was still unbelievably happy he was alive. We'd never exactly been close, but we'd fought side by side for years. You can't go through a war without feeling at least a little kinship for your comrades.

And besides, if he were gone, who would I make all my incredibly witty bird-jokes about?

The knowledge that Tobias was alive had already lifted my spirits considerably. But then, something far more miraculous happened.

((Tobias! Is that you? It is a surprise to hear your voice. Have you also been captured? And Prince Jake and Marco as well?))

Jake and I looked at each other, our eyes wide with shock and joy. We both said exactly the same thing at the same time.

"Ax!"

((Ax!)) Tobias said, echoing our amazement and elation. ((Oh my god, you're alive!))

((Yes, I am alive. I could hardly be expected to be communicating if I weren't.))

It was just about too good to be true. To be honest, I'd already discounted Ax as a goner. I mean, the the guy got eaten by a blinding blob of evil energy, then shot through with a Dracon beam. Not many people could live through that. I'd forgotten how tough us Animorphs are to kill.

Santorelli was still in his wolf morph. He'd apparently decided to stay in morph for the time being, probably with the intention of being able to talk to Ax and Tobias.

((Jake, Marco, and Jeanne are all here, and we're all fine. I haven't seen Menderash, though,)) he said.

((Menderash is alright, aside from minor injuries. He is currently conversing with our captors,)) Ax said.

"Santorelli, tell Ax to tell us what the heck is going on," Jake said. Santorelli relayed the message.

Ax told us everything, starting with his mission, and how he had been captured by the One. He elaborated on what he had learned about the One during his time in its captivity, speculating that ((your Dracon cannon probably destabilized the One's energy flux temporarily)). Whatever that meant.

((And then, according to Menderash, who remained conscious throughout the collision, we were picked up by a small Kelbrid craft. He says that the Kelbrid haven't told him anything yet, but he noted that they seemed surprised to learn that he and I are Andalites,)) Ax finished.

"Kelbrid? They're the ones who captured us?" I asked. Though of course Ax couldn't hear me. Stupid steel walls.

((Prince Aximili, did you mention to them that Kelbrid appear to be incapable of hearing thought-speak?)) Menderash asked, apparently done with whatever negotiations he'd been doing.

((No, you did not mention that fact to me, Menderash,)) Ax said. ((That might help explain the hostilities between Kelbrid and Andalites,)) he added thoughtfully.

((Well, that's just wonderful. This day just gets better and better, doesn't it?)) Tobias grumbled, obviously miffed at having his primary mode of communication rendered useless.

Incidentally, almost as soon as he finished speaking, our day took another turn for the worse.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 (Marco)

As all of us watched, one of the blank steel walls of our room began to shimmer and fade. After a second, it disappeared completely. Standing there were the wall used to be, seven feet tall and more pointy than a Hork-bajir, was what must have been a Kelbrid.

I'm not kidding when I say that the Kelbrid had more blades than a Hork-bajir. This thing was absolutely covered in blades. Razor sharp triangles covered the Kelbrid's skin like feathers on a bird. Each feather-blade was dark gray, fading to sea-green at the tip.

The Kelbrid stood on two legs, like a human. It had two arms, too. But it also had two wings, growing from its shoulders. Enormous wings, and covered with blade-feathers big enough to be daggers. The wings weren't shaped like a bird's wings. They were way too angular, and they didn't look like they could bend the same way.

The feet were weird, too. Like an origami version of a hawk's talons. Or like a tripod of triangular blades, each one folded in half to point at the floor. Those blades looked like they could do some damage. I sure hoped the Kelbrid were always careful not to ever step on anyone's toes.

But the head was the strangest thing of all. It was diamond-shaped, and generally looked like one of those polyhedrons you learn about in geometry. All symmetrical and angular and flat-sided.

It had two glassy, dark red, featureless panels where the eyes should be. And, instead of a mouth, it had four diamond-shaped holes in the bottom half of its face.

I was just wondering to myself how Kelbrid could possibly communicate without a mouth if they couldn't hear thought-speak, when the Kelbrid itself decided to clear my puzzlement.

"Ulmah vud lofash. Woul-noah eih graudo Doua," it said. It was somehow talking, using spoken language, without having any sort of mouth that I could see. I have no idea how this was possible, but I supposed I'd seen weirder things.

"She says that she hopes you are comfortable, and that her name is Doua," Menderash said. I was surprised. I hadn't even noticed Menderash standing right next to the Kelbrid. How had I missed him there?

Wait a minute. '_She_'? This thing was female? That was a surprise. Not the biggest surprise of the day, but still fairly unexpected.

And there was something about Menderash's tone that gave me the feeling that Doua hadn't actually said 'I hope you're comfortable.' But I of course knew better than to do anything but play along with it.

Jake stood up, immediately going into 'leader' mode. He looked Doua squarely in the eye. "Why are you holding us prisoner?" he demanded. "Aside from Aximili, we haven't broken any treaties. And none of us mean you any harm. Let us go, and we promise to leave your territory immediately."

Menderash translated for Doua. The Kelbrid seemed to be unmoved by Jake's request. Her response was another incomprehensible string of syllables, which Menderash translated for us. "She says that she and her crew have done you a great honor by sparing your lives, and that you should be grateful that they didn't leave you to die. You were in Kelbrid space, and, treaty or no treaty, the Kelbrid do not approve of outsiders. She also says that you will remain in Kelbrid custody until they can decide what to do with you."

"What?" I snapped, angry. "Our friend gets abducted against his will by this evil mega-weapon of yours, and then we kill it for you, and you thank us by holding us prisoner? What's the deal here?"

Jake held up us hand at Menderash, telling him not to translate my outburst. Instead he said, "Aximili is the only one who did anything wrong here, and he did so against his will. You can't possibly hold that against him. And the rest of us did you a favor, if I understand correctly, by eliminating the One for you. Surely you can show us at least a little hospitality?"

Menderash translated. Doua let loose a long string of sounds, sounding either angry or exasperated, I couldn't tell. Maybe a little of both.

"She says . . . hang on. She said, 'First of all, we do not have proof that Aximili was not already in Kelbrid space when the One took him. All we have is the word of two Andalites, both of whom have something to gain by lying. Second, you are mistaken in thinking that the rest of you are innocent. Andalite or not, you knowingly trespassed in our territory. Third, you did not eliminate the One. In fact, you only made that task much more difficult. You dispersed his energy signature, making it impossible for us to track him. There is no way to know where, or when, he will coalesce again. Fourth, even if you had eliminated the One, you were not doing it as a favor to the Kelbrid. You were doing it to save yourselves. I am not stupid. For all those reasons, you will remain in our custody until we decide otherwise,'" Menderash said, hardly faltering in his translation even despite the length of the speech he had to remember.

There was a beat of silence, as Jake tried not to lose his temper, Menderash stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do, and Doua stared us all down, daring us to challenge her authority.

"Wonderful," I said with sarcastic cheerfulness. "This is absolutely perfect. My day just wouldn't have been complete without being kidnapped by razor-bladed space nazis."

* * *

Author's note: I originally planned a much more detailed description of the Kelbrid, but I eventually decided that it wasn't really in Marco's character to go that in-depth with detail. Therefore, Marco's fired, and I'll just describe my image of the Kelbrid myself in this author's note.

Marco: Wait a minute. 'Fired' implies 'hired.' You never paid me for any of this! I should sue you!

-hands Marco a dollar- Okay, _now_ you're fired.

Ahem. Anyway.

-Kelbrid Physiology 101-

(Warning: May contain a few very minor spoilers for later chapters of this book)

As Marco said, the Kelbrid are covered in feather-blades. These feather-blades are biggest on the wings, about the size of daggers. The feather-blades on the torso are about average feather-sized, but the ones on the legs and arms are a bit different. The legs and arms are covered in very thin, long blades which look more like very coarse fur than like feathers.

The Kelbrid have long, lanky arms and legs. They have four-fingered (four fingers counting the thumb), dark grey (or in the case of males, black) hands, with pointed fingertips. Their knees bend backward, and their legs have a surprising amount of flexibility. They can easily bend their legs to degrees that would make a person scream. This easy flexibility can make them seem more graceful than they really are.

The wings are, as Marco said, much more angular than a bird's wings. They're essentially shaped like giant triangles, but with a good-sized triangular chunk missing from the lower half of the base of each triangle-wing.

These wings, like the Kelbrids' legs, are more flexible than they look like they ought to be. They have joints where bird wings don't (a joint at the shoulter, and three joints throughout the rest of the wing), giving them an excellent range of movement. This is because, unlike bird wings, Kelbrid wings can be used as weapons, as well as for flight. As Marco said, they're basically covered in daggers. Therefore, they evolved to be flexible enough to be used in combat. Come to think of it, this is the same reason why Kelbrid legs are extra-flexible, too. So that the Kelbrid blade-talons could be utilized to their best extent.

Let's see, what else did Marco leave out . . . oh yeah. The head. As Marco mentioned, the head is roughly diamond-shaped, and polyhedral. The Kelbrid's face, in the shape of a diamond, is divided into two planes by a sort of fold or crease that runs horizontally across the middle. The top half of the face slopes up and back, whereas the bottom half slopes down and back. This head is connected to the shoulders by a somewhat long, almost crane-like neck, which attaches to the back of the head.

Some of you might be wondering how the Kelbrid talk without mouths. I might as well tell you now. The four diamond-shaped holes in the bottom of their face serve as something like a mouth. The holes are arranged in a roughly square pattern (with the bottom two points of the square just a little closer to each other than the top two). These holes connect to the Kelbrid's windpipe. Kelbrid can change the size and shape of their windpipes, to alter the sound that comes through; they use their diaphragm to make sound, and their windpipe to vary the sound to make words. Basically, it works much the same way as talking does in humans, except that their diaphragm takes the place of our vocal chords, and their windpipe takes the place of our mouth and tongue.

As for how Kelbrid eat, they obviously don't have hooves like Andalites. Instead, because of what they eat, they're able to eat through their airholes. Basically, Kelbrid are like the airborne version of baleen whales. On their homeworld, there are many kinds of plants which produce edible spores, and the Kelbrid filter this food out of the air as they fly.

So, there you have it. Everything you wanted to know about the Kelbrid, plus some. Since this was just Kelbrid physiology, there might be a "Kelbrid Sociology 101" in some later chapter of this book, but we'll just have to wait and see. Depends on whose POV that chapter will be, and if they're better at explaining things than Marco.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 (Tobias)

The Kelbrid had put me in a cell all to myself. A lone hawk in the middle of a big steel room. I might not have been happy about the confinement, but I welcomed the solitude.

After the initial thought-speak confirmations that everyone was alive and okay, they all fell silent for a while. My hawk hearing picked up muffled, spoken voices, at least one of which sounded distinctly alien, so I guessed that my friends were talking to the Kelbrid. I couldn't hear what they were saying.

That meant I had time to think. Which is rarely a good thing.

I was still completely shaken up by what I'd just gone through. Seeing the One. Thinking Ax was dead. How close I had come to dying, myself.

And I realized that none of this should have upset me nearly as much as it did. I've been on the verge of death before. I've been completely sure I was about to die, on more than one occasion. Why was this time different?

I didn't really want to admit it to myself, but I knew the answer. I wasn't really upset about having nearly died. I was upset about how I'd reacted to the thought of imminent death. I hadn't resisted it. I'd given myself in to it. I'd embraced it.

For a moment, I think I might have actually _wanted_ to die.

I ruffled my wings, unsettled by the thought. What was _wrong_ with me? How weak and pathetic do you have to be that you'd rather die than face another day?

How many times had I faced situations where it would have been so easy to just give up and die? All those times, I'd managed to pull through. But all of a sudden, as soon as I thought Ax was dead, I simply gave up.

Was I really so dependent on my friends that, without them, I would just lose the will to live? Was I really that pathetic?

Thankfully, Santorelli interrupted my thoughts before I could ponder the answers to those questions.

((Tobias, Ax. Just thought I should let you guys know that the rest of us are over here trying to negotiate with a Kelbrid who calls herself Doua. It's not looking good. She seems to think that we all showed serious disrespect to the Kelbrid by entering their territory. And she doesn't seem to care that there are no actual human-Kelbrid treaties against us trespassing. Jake's still negotiating, but he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.))

((I . . . I am sorry to have caused so much trouble,)) Ax said apologetically. ((We would not be in this situation if I had not been so focused on my mission.))

((Don't worry about it, Ax-man,)) I reassured him. ((You didn't make us come rescue you. We chose to. That's what friends are for.))

Jake kept negotiating for quite a while longer, with Santorelli relaying updates to Ax and I every now and then.

One of the things Santorelli told us was a bit troubling. Apparently, Jake found out, all the Controllers that had been aboard the Blade Ship had mysteriously disappeared by the time the Kelbrid got there. As if they'd vanished into thin air. According to the Kelbrid, the Blade Ship was totally devoid of life or even any evidence of life. There were not even DNA traces left to show that there had once been a crew. Very suspicious, as Marco pointed out.

Had the One managed to save its followers, right before it vanished? We could only speculate.

After a very lengthy negotiation with Jake, Doua did finally agree to let us all out of our cells, allowing us to roam about the ship. But my instincts told me that this wasn't so much an indication of trust or a gesture of hospitality, so much as a decision that we weren't enough of a threat to merit being contained. Either way, though, I wasn't going to argue.

We were all let out of our cells, carefully watched by the strange, blade-covered, winged creature that was Doua. I was reunited with Jake, Marco, Ax, Menderash, Jeanne, and a demorphed Santorelli. Apparently, the Kelbrid had sorted us by species. That was why Ax and I each wound up in cells by ourselves.

"Man, you two both got single rooms? That's so not fair," Marco complained teasingly. "I think they switched Tobias's reservation with ours, because I know we didn't ask for rats in the mini-fridge. And the room service was terrible! Jake, let's make sure we don't ever stay at this place again."

"Aw, quit your whining," Jake said good-naturedly. "Next time we're on an intergalactic road trip we'll just pull over and sleep in a gas station."

That got a laugh from Marco.

I guess, on some level, I was glad to see that the old Jake-Marco dynamic had returned. That they were both able to joke around and laugh with each other again.

But I was still a long way from forgiving Jake. Maybe I never would.

Doua stalked off, leaving us alone for the time being. I guessed that she had other duties to take care of.

"Ax, Tobias, you should both morph human," Jake told us once she was gone. "If we need to talk to any more Kelbrid, the rest of us don't want to have to translate your thought-speak for you."

I said nothing, but concentrated on my human form. No point in defying orders, especially when I knew that Jake happened to be right.

SPROOT! SPROOT!

Morphing is never predictable. This time, the first things to appear were my human arms, shooting out of my hawk chest like those snake-in-a-can things. They'd come out full-sized, and each one was bigger than my hawk body.

Whumph!

I fell flat on my face, the sudden weight of my arms having thrown me off balance.

"Oh!" Jeanne cried, startled and probably a little weirded out at the odd sight of a hawk with human arms. She and Santorelli weren't as used to morphing as the rest of us were.

My hawk body was already growing to catch up. Still lying on my stomach, my legs shot out across the floor as I grew to human size. My feathers melted into pale human skin, and my morphing suit appeared. Shorts and a t-shirt.

I stumbled to my feet, still not quite done changing. My hawk beak softened into a human nose and mouth. My vision blurred as my eyes changed. Hair grew to replace feathers.

By sheer chance, my wings had been the last thing to change. I still had two broad hawk wings growing out of my now-human back.

"Whoa," Marco commented. "Nice. All you need is a halo."

Ax was done morphing his human self. I hurried up to finish my own morph.

Shrriiikrrkrrk! Shrriiikrrkrrk!

My wings made an absolutely horrible sound as they were wrenched into my back. Even worse than the usual morphing sounds. It sounded something like raw hamburger and gravel being run through a wood chipper.

Marco made a face and said, "Ugh. Nevermind."

"Okay," Jake said, getting right down to business. Ignoring Marco's comments about my weird morph. "We need to explore the ship, meet the rest of the crew. See what we're up against. And try to figure out if there's anything we can do about it."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 (Jake)

The Kelbrid ship was fairly small. Not as small as a bug fighter, but definitely smaller than a Blade Ship. Despite being small, however, the ship didn't feel confining. There weren't many rooms, but the few rooms the ship had were very spacious. There were no closets or hallways, and the few doors that there were opened at least twice as wide as the typical door on Yeerk or Andalite craft. Probably to accomodate the Kelbrid's wide wingspan.

After a while, we made our way to the bridge, hoping to at least meet the rest of Doua's crew. The bridge, like the rest of the ship, was a wide-open space, lined with computers and readouts. Unlike the Andalite and Yeerk craft I'd been in, there seemed to be no thought-controlled displays, but rather everything was operated by hand.

There were four Kelbrid in the room. Doua was there, as well as another Kelbrid that looked more or less like her. But there were also two other Kelbrid that were clearly different from the first two. This new type of Kelbrid had pitch black feather-scales fading to bright, lime green tips. They were also shorter than the other type of Kelbrid, by a good one or two feet, putting them at about the same size as an average human. Their talons were noticeably smaller, and looked somewhat less dangerous than Doua's fearsome claws.

The two black-and-lime-green Kelbrid appeared to be doing nothing except staring, apparently deep in thought, at the stars that could be seen through the ship's main window, at the front of the bridge. Meanwhile Doua paced back and forth, apparently checking the ship's readouts, and the other grey-and-sea-green Kelbrid was focused on doing something involving a pair of joystick-like controls.

The two shorter Kelbrid took a moment to notice us, appearing to snap out of their thoughts. They cautiously approached, curious, but also a little bit uncertain about us.

"Do not fear, we mean you no harm," Ax said, his translator chip allowing him to speak the Kelbrid language with minimal difficulty. I was still getting used to my own translator chip. Getting used to the weirdness of being able to understand a whole new language almost effortlessly. We had all received Andalite translator chip implants before going on the mission to rescue Ax. We figured we might need to talk to alien races, and apparently we'd figured right. My own translator chip had adjusted to the Kelbrid language during my 'negotiations' with Doua.

The two Kelbrid nodded, seemingly reassured by what Ax had said.

"I'm Jake," I said, stepping up to make the introductions for my group. "My friends here are Aximili, Marco, Tobias, Menderash, Jeanne, and Santorelli," I said, pointing at each of them in turn.

"This Kelbrid is Vuhl," one of the Kelbrid said respectfully, pointing a finger to indicate the Kelbrid who was operating the joysticks. "You have met Doua," the Kelbrid continued, indicating Doua, who glanced our way for a moment before going back to her rounds. "My name is Zu. This is Bahm," Zu finished, pointing to the other black-and-lime-green Kelbrid. I briefly wondered why Zu had introduced Vuhl and Doua first, but shrugged it off as probably just some weird alien custom.

"Where are the other Andalite and the winged one?" the Kelbrid called Bahm asked.

"I am an Andalite," Ax said. "And I believe Tobias is the winged one to which you refer," he added, indicating Tobias with a wave of his hand.

"Ah, I had heard that Andalites possessed the ability to change shape," Zu said. He turned to Tobias. "Are you an Andalite, as well?"

"Yes," Tobias said, apparently figuring that it would be easier to give the Kelbrid the answer they wanted to hear than to tell the truth. "I am an Andalite, but due to unusual circumstances, my natural form is that of a hawk."

That was a good move on Tobias's part. Now the Kelbrid wouldn't have any reason to suspect that the rest of us were morph-capable, too. I've found that it's always good to have that particular ace up our sleeves.

"Are you a different species of Kelbrid?" Santorelli asked. I have to admit, I was also curious about the two apparently different types of Kelbrid, but my instinct for diplomacy had kept me from saying anything.

Bahm and Zu both just kind of stared at us. Then Zu started to laugh in amazement. At least, I think it was laughter. It sounded a bit like loud, rapid hiccups. "Hup hup hup!" was the noise he made. "Do humans not have sexes?" he asked, sounding amused.

Ooookay. So, apparently, the two types of Kelbrid were actually male and female.

"Yes, we have sexes," I said. I looked around, thinking to illustrate my point, and realized that Jeanne was the only female in our group. I pointed at her and explained, "Jeanne is a female. The rest of us are male."

Zu laughed even harder now. "Hup hup hup hup hup! How can you fly a ship with so many males and only one female?" I had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to mean. And the rest of our little group looked just as confused as I was.

Bahm, on the other hand, discreetly looked Jeanne up and down, then did the same with me. Apparently trying to tell male from female. I guess he didn't see a difference, because he nervously asked, as though afraid of offending us, "How can you tell?"

Ax answered. "There are a number of visible anatomical diff-"

"Girls have long hair," Tobias said, cutting Ax off on purpose. "Well, most of the time, anyway."

"Look at it this way," Marco said. "If you see someone staring lustfully at me, they're a girl. If not, they're a guy."

I rolled my eyes at Marco. Then I clarified to a very confused Zu and Bahm, "The differences are a little hard to explain. So don't worry about it. Just remember that Jeanne's the only girl in our group, and you should be fine."

Zu's laughter had faded away, replaced by a look of curiosity. At least, as far as I could read curiosity in such an alien face. But he definitely seemed interested in us.

"Anything else you wanna know about humans?" Marco asked.

"Or Andalites?" Ax added.

"We'll tell you all you want to know about our cultures, if you tell us about yours," I offered.

Zu's eyes positively lit up at the suggestion. He was literally speechless with excitement for a second or two, before practically shouting, "Yes yes! Tell me everything!"

Bahm, however, looked downright unsettled by the idea. He slowly shook his head, as though there were something about this whole situation that was bothering him. "Zu, you can't be serious," he said slowly, disbelievingly.

"Why not? I mean, sure, this is an unconventional situation, but we cannot expect to learn anything if we always live by tradition! We shouldn't assume that _kuldir_ must be unknowable, simply because that's what we've always been told," Zu argued.

I didn't have a clue what either of them was talking about. And it didn't help that he'd used a word, _kuldir_, that my translator chip couldn't handle.

Bahm looked taken aback by Zu's impudence.

"Um, what's going-" Marco began, but Bahm interrupted him to answer Zu.

"It isn't a matter of learning or tradition. It's a matter of accepting the simple truth. We are Kelbrid, they are not," he said softly. He looked at Zu. "We _can't_ agree to this, this pretentious barter of biased knowledge. It's not just _wrong_, but futile. We cannot think the way _kuldir_ think, no matter how much we might believe we do. We are Kelbrid." Then he looked directly at Ax, and said, "It is foolish and vulgar to _pretend_ to understand anything else."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 (Ax)

"Excuse me?" I said. My thoughts were a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Had the Kelbrid insulted me? His tone had sounded like an insult. But I did not understand his meaning.

"You heard me, Andalite," Bahm replied, softly but with thinly veiled hostility. "Is it not true that Andalites believe in some idealistic notion of universal morality? Absolute standards of good and evil. You think that all races think the way you think, and if they don't, they're wrong. You think that you can even _understand_ the way every race thinks. But you can't."

"Bahm, now's not the time to-" Zu began, but Bahm cut him off.

"We Kelbrid, however, believe that all races simply are the way they are. Good and evil are _subjective_ terms. Defined differently by each race. And even by each individual within that race. Such concepts are not absolute. How could they be? Where would you find an absolute standard of good and evil? What is considered evil by one race can be good to another. Who can say which one is wrong? The answer is that no one can, because neither is wrong. Different races have different pasts, different perspectives. A complete, mutual understanding between two different sentient species is impossible."

There it was. The true reason for the long-standing enmity between Kelbrid and Andalites. I would never have guessed that the difference between our species could be something so fundamental as our most basic moral principles. We believed that sentient life was at least enough alike that understanding between races was possible. At the very least, we were all enough alike to be judged on the same terms. But Kelbrid believed that races were fundamentally so different that each had to have its own standards of right and wrong.

Bahm was wrong. There _was_ a definite, absolute right and wrong, good and evil. If such concepts had a different meaning to every perspective, what would be the point of defining 'good' and 'evil' at all? The very idea of 'morality' would become devoid of meaning.

Wouldn't it?

"Now, I do not pretend to understand Andalite thinking," Bahm went on. "Nor can I call Andalites evil. All I know is what all Kelbrid know about Andalites, which is that, in the past, at least, they have had a tendency to force their morality on other races. Most famously the Yeerks, if I recall correctly. And I also know that all of you are in Kelbrid territory. Since it was your choice to come here, not our choice to recieve you, our own Kelbrid morality and customs should take priority over whatever beliefs about right and wrong that you might have. Don't you agree?"

"No, I don't," Jake said. "I don't think that one viewpoint takes precedence over another so long as compromise is possible."

"True compromise between differing viewpoints is almost never possible," Bahm replied.

"I don't really see what any of this has to do with us swapping stories, anyway," Marco cut in.

"You don't?" Bahm asked, sounding surprised at Marco's statement. As if it should be obvious. He looked perplexed for a moment, as if trying to think of how to explain a concept that he had taken for granted. "Sentient life is based on judgments," he began. "You cannot have free will without knowing, at least on some instinctual level, what you consider to be good or bad. If you didn't, you would be incapable of ever making a decision. Right? Therefore, all races will make their own judgments of everything they encounter. It's a fundamental and instinctual part of free will; you cannot escape it. The only way, therefore, to prevent one race from judging another through their own biased perspective, is to make sure that all sentient races share with each other as little as possible. The idea of 'swapping stories' with _kuldir_ violates everything we believe in."

"You keep using that word. _Kuldir_. What does it mean?" Santorelli asked.

Zu cut in to explain, seeming relieved that he finally had a chance to talk. "You are _kuldir_. _Kuldir_ is . . . the opposite of Kelbrid. It simply means any sentient being that is not Kelbrid."

Tobias had been listening closely to the entire conversation. It was apparent that he had been thinking carefully about everything that was being said. "Aren't you breaking your own rules just by telling us all of this?" he said. "You say you don't believe in absolute right and wrong, yet you want us to accept that your way of looking at the world is right and ours is wrong. Your whole morality contradicts itself."

"No, it does not," Bahm maintained. "It only seems that way because I have only explained the very basics of Kelbrid philosophy. There is much more to our customs and laws, which I will refrain from explaining, both because it would take hours, and because you are right. It is not our place to try to change you. You are different from us. We accept this. Do you?"

"We _shouldn't_ just accept it," Marco argued. "If we just say, 'Oh, we're different from each other, so we can't ever learn about each other,' then what if we're really not as different as we think? We'd never know about it, because we'd have already closed our minds to each other."

"That sounds an awful lot like racism," Santorelli commented darkly.

"Racism?" Zu asked. Apparently that was not a word that translated into the Kelbrid language.

"You know, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping," Prince Jake clarified.

"No no!" Bahm said. "It is precisely the opposite of all that. By isolating the races, we prevent such misunderstandings."

"Bahm, listen to them. I think they might be right. How do we know how different we are unless we have an open mind?" Zu asked hesitantly, as though voicing something he knew to be heresy.

"No," Bahm said flatly. "Races may _think_ they understand each other, but that means nothing. Because, after all, who is it that does the understanding? A different race, with a different perspective. A biased observer. All observers are inherently biased. We may think we see similarities in each other, but who can say that those similarities aren't simple coincidences? Different perspectives, which happen to coincide at one or two points?"

"Or are we all fundamentally the same?" I said, joining the intellectual debate. "Would it not be just as reasonable to assume that our differences are attributable to circumstance, as it would be to assume that our similarities are attributable to coincidence?"

"That's exactly the point. You _can't_ know one way or the other. And it is far safer to assume that you understand nothing, than to think you understand anything," Bahm said.

I turned my human head to look around at my friends. Jake, my prince. Tobias, my _shorm_. Humans. Different from me, yet not so different.

"But would it not be worth it?" I asked. "To actually _understand_?"

* * *

I now have ten total reviews, so, as promised, here's an extra update!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 (Tobias)

"They're insane. Plain and simple. Nutty as Helmacrons," Marco said simply. "You can't just discount everyone as 'different' and then refuse to even try to understand each other."

We had gone to an area of the Kelbrid ship away from the bridge, out of earshot of our Kelbrid captors. Actually, Bahm had told us to leave the bridge for a while so that the crew could deliberate and decide what they were going to do with us, their prisoners. Ax and I were demorphed, and we were all discussing what we knew about the Kelbrid so far, and what we could do with it.

((I don't think so, Marco,)) I said. ((They have a good point. I mean, yeah, some races seem pretty similar, like Andalites and humans. But others, like . . . well, take the Helmacrons. As you just made very clear, none of us understand them. But what is it that makes us 'normal' and them 'nutty'?))

"They're less than an inch tall and think they're going to conquer the universe, for one thing," Marco shot back.

((For them, that's normal. Maybe they think we're nutty because we _aren't_ trying to conquer the universe.))

"Guys! Let's focus here," Jake said, exasperated. "The point is not to argue ethics, okay? We're trying to figure out a way off this ship. Now, I think Zu's our best bet for a Kelbrid we can trust-"

"Which isn't saying much," Marco muttered.

"-because he doesn't seem to be as entrenched in the xenophobic Kelbrid dogma as Bahm is," Jake said. "And of course Doua is-"

"A nazi," Marco finished, interrupting Jake again.

"Pretty much," Jake agreed. "She's the one in charge, and she doesn't like it when anyone disagrees with her. And I got the feeling that she doesn't like us _kuldir_ very much, either."

"What about Vuhl?" Jeanne asked.

"What about her? She never talked to us," Marco pointed out.

"How does she fit into all of this?" Jeanne clarified.

Jake shrugged. "We don't know. We'll just have to make an allowance for her as an unknown factor."

"Well, she seemed really focused on whatever it was she was doing," Santorelli pointed out, trying to be helpful. "So we could probably assume she's a workaholic, maybe?"

"Either that, or she's just anti-social," Marco said.

"You know what? Vuhl might actually be important, after all," Jake said thoughtfully. I could tell from his expression that a plan was forming. "I noticed earlier that the males act deferential to the females. Notice how Zu introduced Vuhl and Doua before himself and Bahm? Maybe, if we can't get through to Doua, we can at least try talking to her second-in-command."

"And you're saying that's Vuhl? I wouldn't be so sure, man," Marco said, skeptical. "We're just going on the order they were introduced in. Trying to figure out their ranking from that detail alone is a pretty dubious step."

((And did Zu not introduce Vuhl first? That would seem to indicate that Vuhl out-ranks Doua. Which does not seem to be the case,)) Ax pointed out.

"Maybe Zu just figured that we'd already met Doua," Jake countered.

"I think we might be over-analyzing this," Marco said. "I mean, who knows? Maybe, in their language, they were going in alphabetical order. Or maybe Zu's just into chivalry. There's dozens of other explanations."

"Still, I think we should talk to Vuhl," Jake said firmly. "I just have this feeling she's important."

Before any of us could argue with him any more, we heard the sound of claws against the metal floor of the ship. One of the Kelbrid was coming.

The Kelbrid rounded a corner, and we saw that it was Zu. "We have reached our decision," he announced. "We will take you with us to our planet, where our best philosophers can decide the matter of your fate."

We all nodded and made our various noises of approval. Or, in my case, just nodded.

We would play along. Act cooperative. Pretend that we approved of the idea of being put on trial by these Kelbrid philosophers, or whatever they were.

But, of course, we had no intention of sticking around.

"What's the plan, Jake?" Marco asked in English so that the Kelbrid wouldn't understand him.

"Play along. Try not to make anybody mad, but also don't act so compliant that they get suspicious. I'm going to try to get Vuhl alone," Jake answered. "If I can't get anywhere with her, plan B is to take this ship by force. The element of surprise is on our side."

Then he grinned that dangerous, reckless grin. Rachel's grin.

Marco groaned, obviously having noticed Jake's expression. "We're all gonna die, aren't we?"

* * *

sofia666: There's a reason why Santorelli and Jeanne are staying relatively quiet. Several reasons, actually. But I don't want to spoil anything, so keep reading, and I hope the reasons will be clear soon.

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed my story so far!


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 (Jake)

It would be a while until I got a chance to talk to Vuhl alone. In the mean time, I realized that none of us had even thought about eating in at least twenty-four hours. And now we were feeling the effects.

"Ugh," Marco complained. "I'm starving."

"Here," Zu offered helpfully, leading us off to the side of the bridge. He picked up what looked like an oxygen mask, and held it out to Marco.

"Uh," Marco stuttered. "I'm sorry, but we don't eat air."

"Not air. _Piroth_. What do humans eat?" Zu asked, apparently surprised that humans couldn't eat anything from a gas mask.

"Nothing that can be inhaled. At least, not unless you count crack cocaine as a food," Marco said.

((What's _piroth_?)) Tobias asked. Then he remembered that Zu couldn't hear him. I repeated the question out loud for him.

"_Piroth_ is . . . a powder. Made by plants, to grow more plants. It floats in the air, and Kelbrid absorb it." He pointed at the four diamond-shaped holes in his face, apparently at a loss to explain exactly how Kelbrid could absorb a powder.

((Plant spores,)) Tobias translated. ((Yuck.))

"This from the guy who eats rats," Marco muttered.

"What is 'crack cocaine'?" Zu asked. Apparently that was something that didn't have a Kelbrid equivalent.

"It's a powder, too. But it's bad for you. It's a drug," I said.

"Ah," Zu said. "So do humans not normally eat powders from the air? How do you eat, then?"

"We just put stuff into our mouths and chew," I said with a shrug. "See?" I worked my jaw to demonstrate. Zu looked mesmerized by the utter strangeness of my mouth. As if he'd missed seeing it before I'd pointed it out.

"I apologize, but I can only offer you _piroth_ to eat," Zu said after I'd finished demonstrating. "We have three varieties. _Runei_, _darvon_, or _thywer_?"

"What do they taste like?" Jeanne asked.

Zu looked perplexed as he tried to find words to explain. "They taste like _runei_, _darvon_, and _thywer_. I'm afraid I know of nothing else to compare them to."

So we all just sort of picked flavors at random. I think mine was _darvon_. After Marco made an attempt to use the oxygen-mask apparatus and was overtaken by a massive coughing fit, we decided to eat the _piroth_ in powdered, non-inhalant form.

I stared at my lunch. A pile of grey-green powder. Cautiously, I pinched a fingerful of it and put it on my tongue.

It wasn't bad, actually. I can't quite describe the taste, but the closest analog would be spiciness. But sort of nutty-tasting, too, with a bit of a sweet aftertaste. Not bad, for plant spores.

((Ugh, you've got to be kidding me,)) Tobias complained. ((I can't eat plants. My digestive system can only handle meat. What am I supposed to do?))

"Morph to human?" Marco suggested.

((No, that wouldn't work. What I eat as a human doesn't feed my hawk self.))

There was a long pause, as we all thought about the options.

Ax, cautiously looked up from the hoof he was grinding into a pile of ochre-colored _runei_ powder. He fidgeted a little, avoiding looking directly at Tobias. ((I . . . may have an idea,)) he said slowly, obviously not quite wanting to say what he was about to say. ((I do not know if you will find it acceptable, but, if there is no other option . . . perhaps . . . ))

((Come on, Ax, spit it out. I'm sure it beats going hungry. What's your idea?)) Tobias said.

((Well, the morphing technology regenerates missing tissue, so . . . one of us could . . . )) Ax stuttered.

"What? Oh my god. Are you really suggesting what I think you are suggesting? That is disgusting," Jeanne exclaimed, having immediately figured out what Ax was hinting.

((Whoa. That's . . . well, I mean . . . um. That's certainly an idea, alright,)) Tobias managed to stutter. He's probably the least squeamish of all of us, and even he was weirded out by what Ax was suggesting.

I was beyond weirded out. I felt downright sick.

"Ugh," I managed to groan.

Marco, on the other hand, glanced around the room and asked, "Any volunteers?"

Nobody volunteered.

There was a reason why Ax's idea was making me feel uneasy. Because I knew it had to be me. I felt like I owed Tobias something. I could tell that he still hadn't quite forgiven me, even after all these years. It was up to me to make the first steps towards peace between us. Which meant I couldn't pass up an opportunity to do him this big a favor.

I hesitantly raised my hand, volunteering myself. "How do you feel about rhinoceros meat?" I asked.

((To be honest, I've never tried it,)) Tobias responded.

I made an excuse to Zu, and we all headed off to an area of the ship where he couldn't see us. Out of sight of any Kelbrid, I focused on my rhinoceros morph.

My arms and legs bulked up into pillars, my face erupted into the rhinoceros's horn, and my skin hardened into armor. I was a living tank.

Whoa. It had been forever since I'd done this morph. I'd forgotten how bad the rhinoceros's eyesight was. I could barely even see Marco. But I could still hear him.

"Come on, you have to say it. Say it, Jake. You can't pass this one up. Seriously, how many chances will you have to make this joke ever again? You've gotta say it," Marco begged.

I had a feeling I knew what joke he was talking about. I sighed, but consented. Just to make Marco happy.

((Oh, alright, alright! Tobias, you wanna piece of me?)) I said, in my best 'tough guy' voice. Which was probably pretty pathetic.

((Bring it on, big Jake,)) Tobias replied, joking back. I was relieved that he was able to joke around with me like that. It meant we were making at least a little progress.

"Ax? You ready to slice up Jake like a christmas ham?" Marco said.

((Better question. Am I ready to be sliced up like a christmas ham?)) I said.

((Yes, I am ready. I must sincerely apologize, Prince Jake. Please forgive me,)) Ax said. Then he slashed his tail into my flank. I felt one, two, three sharp stings, then heard a wet-sounding thump. It didn't hurt as much as I was worried it might. Rhinoceroses are pretty tough.

I demorphed. Once my eyes were back, I saw Tobias tearing into a rat-sized piece of rhino meat. Meat that had been attached to me just moments ago.

I tried my best to shake off the willies. Of course, they came rushing right back the moment Marco asked, "So, Tobias, what does 'fearless leader' taste like?"

((Not bad)) he answered. ((A lot better than mice and rats, actually.))

Despite how utterly creeped out I was still feeling, I had to laugh. "Oh, gee, that's good to know."

* * *

Thank you, viennacantabile, for the wonderfully detailed review. -holds it up for everyone to see, disregarding the embarrassment that such an action would likely cause viennacantabile- See, this is the kind of review that makes me glow with happiness like Tobias after he turned into his cat. I love it when people tell me what it is I'm doing right, and give me suggestions.

But, of course, I appreciate every one of you who have reviewed my stories so far. Keep reading, and keep reviewing! Three more reviews will bring me up to twenty, and another extra chapter!


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 (Jake)

The rest of the day passed without incident. That night (not that there's a difference between night and day in space, but I just mean when everyone else had decided to sleep), I finally got a chance to talk to Vuhl. As usual, she was focused on her work at a computer terminal in the bridge. She didn't even notice me approach.

"Hello," I greeted, acting casual. "You're Vuhl, right?"

She didn't turn around. "Hmm? What do you want? Are the males not keeping you company?" The way she said it was weird. As if it were the males' job to entertain us, and thus she shouldn't have to.

"No, it's not that," I said. "It's just that I've met everyone else on this ship, but I've never talked to you. I just wanted to get to know you, since we might be stuck together a while."

"Getting to know you isn't my job. That's for Zu and Bahm to do. My job is making sure this ship works right. Now if you'll excuse me," she said, hoping I would get the hint and leave.

"Why are you so concerned about what is or isn't your job? Just because you don't _have_ to do something doesn't mean you aren't allowed to," I said, trying to press her to talk to me.

Finally, she actually turned to look at me. It was tough to tell, but I think she looked angry. "Don't push your ideas on me, _kuldir_. I don't particularly care about ethics, least of all yours. Do I look like a male to you?"

"What?" I asked, confused. "Uh, no, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"Males think. Females act," she said simply, turning away from me again. "Is that not the way it works with your kind, _kuldir_?"

"No, that isn't how we humans work. What do you mean, 'males think, females act'?" I asked, hoping for a little more clarification.

Vuhl sighed, apparently realizing I wasn't going away until she explained. She talked in a rush, as if hoping that the quicker she gave me an answer, the sooner I would leave. "Kelbrid females are stronger, more physically skilled than males. Thus, females take care of practical things, like mechanical work and keeping _kuldir_ in line. Kelbrid males are smarter. So they take care of things like philosophy. Companionship. And ethics."

It clicked. Of course. Males think, females act. That explained why we had thought Doua was in charge. Because she had been the one to take charge. Leadership was more a practical skill than a philosophical one. I knew that from experience. True, a good leader needed to be smart, but even more important was the ability to _act_ decisively.

I also recalled what Zu had said when we first met him. Something about not being able to run a ship with so many males and only one female. Of course. 'Males think, females act.' From a Kelbrid perspective, if a ship was run by too many males, its crew would overthink every decision and never get anything done. Zu must have just assumed that humans worked the same way.

For a species that claimed not to want to have anything to do with other races, the Kelbrid sure made a lot of assumptions about us.

"I am sorry to have been rude to you, _kuldir_," Vuhl said, shaking me out of my thoughts. "But you have to understand that I care nothing for companionship. I am just a mechanic. I care only for my machines. Living beings are far too complicated."

"Yeah, I feel that way sometimes too," I admitted. "But, I guess I just figure that some of the time it's worth it, you know?"

"Perhaps . . . some of the time," Vuhl conceeded slowly. "I do enjoy Doua's company, at least." As soon as she said it, she suddenly looked like she regretted letting that bit of information slip.

"Doua? Really," I said. "She's a good friend of yours, then?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"I don't know. It's just that she seemed a little . . . harsh."

"Of course she struck you that way. You're _kuldir_. She has to keep a distance from you. Which is what I should be doing, too." She turned back to whatever it was she had been working on.

"Why are you doing this?" I said suddenly. "If you're so mad that we came into your territory in the first place, why are you taking us back to your planet?"

"That was not my decision," she said. I thought she might go on, but she didn't. She went back to whatever she was doing, apparently thinking I was finally going to be done bothering her.

I suddenly realized that this discussion had turned into a dead end. Anything I said at this point to try to salvage the conversation would probably just make Vuhl angry again, so I said, "Well, thanks for talking to me. I'll leave you alone."

I walked away. She kept working as if I had never been there.

When I got back to where my friends were sleeping, Marco was already awake. "Well?" he asked expectantly.

"Plan B," I replied. With negotiations with Vuhl being a dead end, no choice now but to fight our way off of this ship. And better to attack while most of the Kelbrid were sleeping.

Marco groaned, but then he and I shook the others awake. They yawned and stretched, Tobias ruffled his feathers, and Ax simply opened his eyes as if he hadn't even been sleeping in the first place. "Battle morphs," I whispered. Immediately, wordlessly, my friends began to shift and change.

Orange fur was already spreading up my arms. Black stripes bled like ink across my fur. Claws grew out of the tips of my fingers. My gums itched as my canine teeth grew long and sharp. I fell onto four legs, and a tail shot out of my rump, completing my transformation.

I was a tiger. My tail twitched, and I surveyed my surroundings with my keen tiger eyes. I saw a Hork-bajir, an Andalite, a gorilla, a wolf, a lioness, and Menderash as a human. I could feel the familiar pre-battle rush, and suddenly it was as if the last three years had never happened. I was back in the game, ready to fight.

We all looked around at each other, as if we couldn't quite believe that we were actually getting ready to go into battle again after so long.

Tobias flexed his bladed arms, seeming to admire their strength. At last, he quietly spoke, in a voice tinted with nostalgia.

((Let's do it.))

* * *

Twenty reviews! Whoot! You know what this means . . .

Extra chapter! Enjoy. And another thank you to all who reviewed. You guys fill my soul with happy.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 (Marco)

((Menderash, stay here. You should be safe,)) Jake ordered. ((The rest of us, let's move out. Try to keep quiet. We don't want all the Kelbrid on us at once if we can help it. Marco and Ax, go for this ship's controls as soon as we get there. The rest of us can keep Vuhl distracted.))

I walked on my knuckles towards the bridge. I was a gorilla. A creature that could rip trees out of the ground, that could knock out a Hork-bajir with a single well-aimed punch. But even I was a little worried. None of us had ever gone head-to-head with a Kelbrid before. Were they a fighting race? We didn't know. Could we beat them? Didn't know that, either.

When we reached the bridge, everything happened at once. Jake lunged for Vuhl, still at her console. He hit her from behind, and she screamed a hissing, alien shriek.

"SHRYEEEE!"

Jake fell back, his paws bloody from Vuhl's blade-feathers. Black, alien blood mixed with the red blood Jake had left on Vuhl's wings. She'd been hurt, too.

I lunged for the nearest console, and Ax followed suit. My big gorilla hands were just barely dexterous enough to work most of the controls. But the real problem was figuring out what button did what.

Vuhl had shot into the air as soon as Jake fell back. With every flap of her wings, she kept out of our reach. "DOUA!" she yelled. "The _kuldir_ are attacking!" I heard the sound of Kelbrid talons racing for the bridge.

Vuhl suddenly saw what I was doing at the console and swooped down on me. Her bladed talons were in my eyes before I could even shield myself.

"Hroooaaar!" I roared in pain as blood gushed from my face where my eyes used to be. I was blind!

I could only hear what was going on. I heard Doua's voice, accusing, "Miserable _kuldir_! This is how you reward us for trusting you!" I heard Tobias's Hork-bajir grunts of pain. Santorelli's wolf howling in terror. Jeanne's lioness snarling like an echo of Jake's more intimidating roars. Ax's tail blade snapping like a bullwhip. And the wingbeats of alien wings.

I felt the Kelbrid attacking me, again and again. Sheets of blades slapped against my back and sides. And every time I reached out blindly to retaliate against my unseen attackers, my groping hands found nothing.

My fur was soaked with hot, sticky blood. The gorilla's blood.

BOOM.

It wasn't really a sound that I heard, but rather an explosion that I could _feel_, going off in my bones. I thought I'd experienced every sort of agony there was, but a brand new kind of pain tore into my shoulder. You know that sort of deep, thudding feeling you get deep in your chest at a really loud rock concert? That intense throbbing that feels like it might rip you apart? Multiply that by a thousand, and concentrate it all in one spot. That's about what it felt like.

I could feel my shoulder blade shatter from the force, and the gorilla roared in pain.

I quickly came to realize that there just was no way I could fight if I couldn't see. I knew I had to fall back and demorph. I stumbled as far away as I could get from the sounds of battle, backing myself up against a wall. I tried to find a place to hide, but without being able to see where I was, there was no way to know whether or not I was out of sight. I found the best place I could, and cautiously resumed my human shape. I knew I was taking a huge risk, but, at the time, I couldn't think of any other choice. I could feel my gorilla muscles draining away, my leather skin being absorbed into my pathetically weak human flesh. My eyes re-formed last. I could see.

To my horror, I saw that Doua still had a perfectly clear view of me, in my human form, almost completely helpless. Before I could even think of morphing again, she was on me. She held something against my head that looked a lot like a gun. It didn't really look like a Dracon beam, or an Andalite shredder. It actually looked more like a high-tech, alien version of a regular human gun. Except that the barrel was a lot wider than that of a human gun. This thing could've fired a golf ball.

I was willing to bet that it was that gun that was responsible for the shock wave that had shattered my shoulder. And I was willing to bet a lot more that I wouldn't like what it would do to my skull.

"You have fought bravely, _kuldir_," Doua proclaimed to everyone in the room. "But you have lost. Surrender now, unless you care nothing for your fellow."

I looked at my friends. It had apparently been a pretty rough battle. Jeanne was sprawled on the floor, her lioness form lacerated, lying in a puddle of blood, barely moving. Tobias was missing an eye, and there was a perilously deep cut pumping Hork-bajir blood from his serpentine neck. Santorelli was nowhere to be seen. There was a long gash down Ax's flank, and his tail was hanging at a weird angle, probably broken. Jake held one paw off the ground, and he was panting heavily, his own bright red blood dripping from his jaw with every breath. Both his eyes were bleeding, but he, at least, seemed to have had the good sense not to demorph.

It wasn't like we hadn't hurt Doua and Vuhl. There was almost as much black Kelbrid blood staining the deck as there was our blood, and the floor was littered with broken blade-feathers. Almost a foot of Vuhl's left wing had been sliced off, and she was staring in speechless horror at the bleeding remnant. Doua sported a number of deep gashes and cuts across her torso. But, just the same, it was plain to see that she was right. We had lost.

Six against two, and we had lost. And it was all my fault.

* * *

delly: Yeah, I kinda miss Cassie too, but, sorry, she won't be in this fic at all. But I _will_ tell you that she'll have a big part in The Rebirth (book 56).


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 (Tobias)

We spent the rest of our trip locked up in cells once more. This time, however, the Kelbrid had put each of us in solitary confinement. We had broken whatever tiny flicker of trust they had in us, and now they weren't going to give us an inch. They weren't even going to let us see each other.

They were either trying to break our spirits, or trying to keep us from plotting something together. I'm not entirely sure which. Perhaps both.

I managed to wind up in a cell with a window this time, at least. I looked out at the starry backdrop of space. We'd gone through Zero-space some time ago, without even realizing it. Now we were making the final, real-space descent towards the Kelbrid home planet. 'Kelbri,' I think was what Bahm had called it. What a creative name.

I could see the planet as a tiny, marble-sized ball of golden yellow, black, and a few scattered hints of blue. It didn't look at all like earth, but I supposed I might have considered it beautiful, under other circumstances.

Of course, it's hard to find anything beautiful when viewed from the tiny window of a steel-walled cell.

Slowly spinning around Kelbri was a chestnut-brown moon, almost a quarter the size of the Kelbrid planet itself. The moon's surface was pockmarked with charred-black craters and canyons, perhaps evidence of some long-ago fiery catastrophe. As I gazed up at it, I was suddenly overcome by a feeling of dread. There was a dark secret about that moon. I'm not sure quite what gave me that idea, but I was sure of it, all the same. Something about that charred, floating sphere . . . wasn't right.

I ruffled my feathers, trying to shake off the vague, unsettled feeling the Kelbrid moon was giving me. There was no point in worrying about dark secrets and dead moons.

The descent towards Kelbri turned out to be quite a long trip. We all did what we could to entertain ourselves.

((Okay, I've got one,)) Marco said. ((Why did the Ellimist cross the road?))

((I do not know, Marco. Why did the Ellimist cross the road?)) Ax asked.

((Nobody knows,)) Marco replied.

There was a pause. ((Wait, was that it? Was that the punchline?)) Jake asked. ((Sorry, Marco, but I'm going to have to give that one a three.))

((You're losing your sense of humor, buddy. You know that joke was at least a five.))

((What do the numbers three and five have to do with a road and the Ellimist?)) Menderash asked, utterly confused.

((Don't try to understand it, Menderash,)) I told him. ((It's not worth it, trust me.))

The whole trip, it was basically the same routine. Marco telling jokes, the rest of us letting him know what we thought of them. Those of us who weren't naturally thought-speak capable taking a break to demorph every couple hours.

Trust me, if any of us could think of anything better to do, we would have. After about the twentieth lame punchline, we were all sick of Marco's voice. And his jokes.

Santorelli was perceptibly silent throughout most of the trip. He had run away from his first battle, and it was clear that he wasn't forgiving himself easily. I wouldn't have pegged him as anything resembling a coward, but you can never know what someone will do in a fight until they're in the middle of it.

In his defense, of course, it had been Santorelli's first real battle, and it was a pretty intense one, at that. So maybe it wasn't fair to call him a coward.

But then, Jeanne hadn't run. It had been her first battle, too. Was she just unusually brave, or was Santorelli cowardly?

Oh, well. I supposed that none of that mattered now. It wasn't like any of us would be fighting our way out of our cells.

After a few hours, Zu came by to make sure we were fed. He stuck a transparent cylinder filled with sky-blue powder through a hole in the wall of my cell, which immediately closed up again.

I _was_ hungry, but of course I couldn't eat _piroth_. I stared enviously at the blue powder. ((I just had to get stuck as a carnivore, didn't I?)) I complained to myself.

Thankfully, we finally arrived on the Kelbrid planet not too much later.

I watched out the window as we made the final descent. We landed in a grassy plain that reminded me a little of a savannah on earth. There were no trees anywhere I could see, just an endless stretch of golden-yellow cottony brambles, weird dark blue-green triangle-shaped leaves, and tall, khaki-colored rods.

Near where we landed, I could see giant silvery structures of some sort that were clearly artificial. There were towering cliffs and spires, looking like one of those tourist-attraction rock formations you might find naturally in New Mexico or Arizona or something. You know, the sort of thing that's all canyons and mesas, supposedly carved out by the wind or whatever? Except that this 'formation' was all silver and glass.

We all stepped out of the ship once we'd been fitted with all the appropriate restraining devices. The humans had something a lot like handcuffs on their hands and feet, and Ax was wearing an elaborate contraption of wires to restrain his tail. As for me, I had cloth wrapped around my talons to render them useless, and a muzzle on my beak. Something like a leash was tied to my left leg, making sure I didn't fly away. Zu held the other end of it, letting me fly tight circles over our sad little group.

Vuhl's injured wing had healed, but it was still only about two-thirds of a wing. Kelbrid didn't have morphing technology to repair their injuries, after all. Vuhl kept glancing balefully at Ax, and I can't say I blamed her. If someone cut off one of my wings, and I couldn't just morph to repair it, I'd be pretty furious, too. Actually, the thought that occurred to me was that she didn't seem nearly as angry as she ought to have been.

I looked back at the Kelbrid ship, seeing it from the outside for the first time. It was bright, gleaming silver, the same silver as the city. The central shaft was a diamond-shaped prism whose sides were concave towards the front, with two of the front corners pinching out into elongated points, and convex towards the back, the prism sweeping back and narrowing into a graceful-looking 'tail.' Also towards the back, the sides of the prism were arrayed with four parallel rows of forward-raked spines, vaguely reminiscent of fins. The ship had an interesting mix of geometry, grace, and ferocity. Sort of like the Kelbrid, themselves.

Five humans and an Andalite shuffled into the Kelbrid city, watched closely by our captors, as I drifted above. It wasn't very far to the city, but with the tense silence hanging over us all, it felt like a lot farther than it was.

Up close to the city, I could see that it was actually a more-or-less open structure. Sort of like the support frame for an unfinished building, but arranged in flowing, organic shapes, and decked out with silver platforms, sheets of glass, gigantic spinning fans, and various sorts of alien furniture and equipment. It all had the effect of looking smooth and solid from a distance, but open and airy up close.

The place buzzed with activity. Kelbrid flew through and around the structure, many of them seeming to ride the air currents created by the fans.

Doua greeted a pair of female Kelbrid standing vigil at the nearest 'road' into the city. "Good day," she said to them. "Do you know when the philosopher-court will next convene?"

The two Kelbrid looked warily at our group, as if they didn't quite trust _kuldir_ in their city. Or maybe even on their planet. "Two days," one of them said, as she looked up distractedly at me.

"Why in the name of Lethon did you bring _them_ here?" the other said angrily, talking to Doua while pointing an accusing finger at my friends. "If they were trespassing, you could have killed them just as easily as-"

"Quiet!" Zu interrupted. "They can understand you!" He looked around at us, and up at me, to see our reactions. My hawk expression betrayed nothing, of course, but it was clear that my friends were more than a little unsettled by what the second Kelbrid had started to say.

"Are you really so worried about the tender feelings of _kuldir_?" the same Kelbrid joked. "Blades forbid that we should ever punish trespassers!"

Vuhl then spoke in a voice so soft I'm not even sure the others could hear her.

"Punish the trespassers. If only it were that simple. But it never is, is it?"

As I drifted high above the dismal group of my friends and the strange aliens we were barely even beginning to understand, I silently agreed with her.

* * *

Wow, I hit thirty reviews! Man, I feel popular!

And, of course, this means . . . Extra chapter!

M&M: The Doua's-crew-vs.-Animorphs battle was supposed to be sort of a 'mini-climax' of the story. So there _should_ be a bit of a 'denoument' feel afterwards. I can't hardly end every chapter on a cliffhanger, can I?


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 (Ax)

It would be two Kelbrid days until we were put on trial before the Kelbrid philosopher-court. Kelbrid days are somewhat shorter than earth days, so the time seemed to pass quickly.

Considering what we had heard from the female Kelbrid we had met, I almost wished it had been longer.

The wait was fairly uneventful. We were taken to a new cell, and held there until our trial. The cell was comprised of a large percentage of transparent material, so my Andalite claustrophobia was put more or less to ease, and I could look out over the Kelbrid city. All of us were held together this time, a luxury for which I was grateful. It was good to see my friends, after the horrible loneliness of being trapped within the One, and then the many distractions of our voyage aboard the Kelbrid ship.

Ever since being released by the One, I had often wondered why only I had become separated from it when it dispersed. I knew that it had captured other beings, as well as me. Why had I been freed, but none of the others? That was certainly a difficult question to answer. And it was made all the more difficult since it inevitably led to another, much more unsettling question: What if I had not escaped? What if I had stayed trapped within the One forever, drifting through that lonely dreamscape until my very mind had simply dissolved away?

I shook myself out of my thoughts. Such morbid questions could be pondered later. For now, I should be content with merely enjoying the company of my fellow Animorphs.

"Sure, it looks pretty hopeless, but we've been in tighter spots than this," Marco was saying of our situation. He was trying to be optimistic, a frame of mind that is somewhat unusual for him. We were nearing the end of the second day, and everyone had long since grown tired of his usual pessimism.

((We're trapped in a cell on planet Nazi where absolutely _nobody_ is going to give us an inch, and where there isn't a single freaking edible animal _anywhere_. You tell me a time when it's been more hopeless than this,)) Tobias snapped. Tobias has a tendency to be harsh when he is hungry.

" . . . Okay, I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure there have been some, alright?"

Prince Jake was rubbing his temples, something he does to indicate that he is stressed or exasperated.

((Perhaps being held on trial will work in our favor,)) I suggested to him. ((The Kelbrid are an intelligent species. Surely they can be sensible. It stands to reason that if they were beyond any sort of empathy, they would not be bothering to hear our case at all.))

"Maybe, but . . . " Marco sighed, apparently giving up on his brief attempt at optimism. "As depressing as I'm sure this is going to sound, I think Doua and friends are actually more on our side than most Kelbrid are. Most of the Kelbrid I've seen on this planet so far looked like they would've sliced us to pieces out of pure spite if Doua hadn't stopped them."

"Yes, Marco is right," Jeanne chimed in. "The question is, why? We double-crossed Doua's crew. Why do they still have any interest in helping us?"

Marco smiled, obviously pleased that Jeanne had agreed with his assessment. I do not understand much about human romance, but I believe that Marco had taken an interest in Jeanne.

Marco sidled closer to Jeanne and said, "Have I mentioned that I love your voice?"

Prince Jake rolled his eyes. "The real question is, what will these Kelbrid philosophers be like? Will they be like most Kelbrid, or will they be like Doua's crew?"

((If what you have told us is correct, Prince Jake, it is probably reasonable to assume that the Kelbrid philosophers will be mostly, if not entirely, male,)) I pointed out.

Prince Jake nodded. "Right. But, that doesn't tell us much. After all, what do we really know about Kelbrid males? Only what we know about Zu and Bahm, plus what Vuhl told me."

"And I got the idea that Zu was unusual by Kelbrid standards. The rest of the crew kinda seemed to think he was a little odd," Marco pointed out. "Did anybody else notice that?"

"So we can't count on him as a reference for 'normal' Kelbrid males," Prince Jake reasoned.

"Which leaves us with Bahm. Meaning we would generalize an entire species based on one individual," Marco said disappointedly.

((That would not be wise,)) I said.

"Ya think?" Marco shot back.

I had forgotten that humans tend to get upset when I state things that are 'obvious.' But many times it is hard for me to tell what is or is not obvious to a human. It had been a long time since I had spent time with my human friends.

A very long time.

I suddenly realized just how much I had missed them during my travels in space. It was so strange. For as long as I lived on earth, I was lonely, because I felt cut off from my fellow Andalites. But when I had returned to my 'true people,' I had still been lonely, if only in the back of my mind, because I was far away from my human friends.

So, then, where did I truly belong?

Perhaps the Kelbrid were right about one thing. Perhaps when separate species mingled, the result was more harm than good.

After Marco's sarcastic retort, our cell had fallen back into silence. We could think of no way out of the situation we were in. All of our plans had run up against a wall. And it was all because of my own foolishness that we were even in this situation.

Of course, there was no sense dwelling upon that now. My human friends had been quick to forgive me.

I sometimes think that they are even a little too quick to forgive a friend's mistakes. No Andalite would ever be so lenient. But, of course, I couldn't change them or their customs any more than they could change mine.

Even so, their ability to forgive was sometimes unsettling to me.

Again, I felt a tiny wisp of self-doubt. What if the Kelbrid were right? What if separate species were not meant to understand one another?

No, that was preposterous. I understood humans, and my human friends understood me. We had our differences, but differences need not be a barrier.

Suddenly, Doua's voice startled me out of my thoughts.

"The philosopher-court is about to convene," she said simply. She was standing outside our cell, looking in through the glass. I had not seen her approach. "Don't try anything." She raised her arm, clearly showing to us the hand in which she held a Kelbrid shock-wave gun.

Moments later, we were all fitted with the restraining devices we had worn on our way into the city. My tail was bent at a terribly uncomfortable angle by the harness I was fitted with, but far more disconcerting was simply the knowledge that I could no longer use it to defend myself.

We rode a floating platform from our cell to a wide bowl-shaped area, which looked much like a stadium or an amphitheater of the sort found on earth, except that it was made out of silver and glass. Arrayed in the 'bowl' were rows of metal seats, ranging from tarnished grey to bright silver in color, and including what humans would call 'arm-rests,' but lacking a back piece. In these seats sat possibly five hundred or more Kelbrid.

As we had guessed, most of the stadium's occupants were male. There were only three or four females, looking very out of place among the many males. When we came closer, I could see that each Kelbrid's blade-feathers were inlaid with intricate patterns of silver, looking quite ceremonial. It was easy to see that these philosophers were considered to be very important members of Kelbrid society.

We were brought to the center of the stadium. I must admit, it was somewhat intimidating, looking up to find myself surrounded by so many alien faces, all staring down at me.

A single Kelbrid stood up, his silver-inscribed blade-feathers glinting in the sun.

"Plead your case."

* * *

animorph19: I think you're reading more into it than there is. Sometimes, an unfinished sentence is just an unfinished sentence.

lilJunebug: As much as I appreciate reviews, I'd like to see something a little more varied than "Update Soon." Any review is better than no review at all, but detailed reviews that tell me what it is you like or don't like about my stories are appreciated even more.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 (Ax)

Prince Jake stepped forward and told the Kelbrid philosopher-court our story. Standing, without apparent fear, in front of the seething mass of Kelbrid, he recounted how he and the others had come to my rescue. Menderash assisted him in the telling, giving a first-hand account of the fate of the _Intrepid_, and how I had been captured. I could not add anything, as the Kelbrid could not hear thought-speak, and I currently had no other means of communication. I could not morph, as I was reasonably certain that the Kelbrid would percieve my morphing as a threat.

So I simply stood there, unable to directly participate in what was very much my trial, more than anyone else's. I, the sole Andalite who could have broken the Andalite-Kelbrid treaty. And it was I, to whose rescue the other 'trespassers' had come.

Which is not to say that Prince Jake did anything less than an admirable job of standing up for all of us in the trial. After Jake and Menderash had finished recounting our story, the debate very quickly became quite heated.

"By your own philosophy, you cannot possibly hold us to your laws!" Prince Jake argued. "If our morality conflicts with yours, which it does, how can you say one is right? You shouldn't be able to, by your own logic!"

"By entering our territory, you forfeit your claim to the moral superiority of your own customs and laws," one of the Kelbrid males stated, as if quoting a legal text. "The only exception to this is when someone enters our territory against their will, as Aximili may have done. However, we have no proof that Aximili was indeed acting against his will when he entered Kelbrid space."

"Well, how can we prove it?" Prince Jake asked.

"You cannot prove his innocence. Therefore, we will judge his guilt the same as the rest of you."

I tensed, my immobile tail twitching in anger. I was shocked. I wondered if I had even heard right. Had the Kelbrid really just said that, in lieu of proof of my innocence, they would simply judge me the same as my friends? I had thought the Kelbrid to be reasonable! Surely, no reasonable race could come to such an irrational decision!

((This is clearly unfair!)) I yelled, angry at the injustice. Of course, no-one heard me except my friends. But Prince Jake repeated my exclamation.

"This is clearly unfair!" he shouted with the same vehemence that I had. "You can't possibly judge someone before you even _know_ whether or not they're innocent!"

"Our territory, our laws," one of the Kelbrid shot back. "You should have thought before trespassing, shouldn't you have?"

I was about to shout back that I _didn't_ trespass, but I suddenly slumped, realizing just how pointless it was to say anything at all. I might as well have been pleading against a mountain. That's how it felt. Like I was talking to some dispassionate thing that could not hear me and did not care what I had to say.

I had never felt so utterly powerless in all my life.

It was then that I noticed that Doua's crew was watching the trial. I had been so focused on the proceedings that I hadn't noticed them until now. They caught my attention because Vuhl stood up, as if to argue with the philosopher's decision. But she didn't say anything. She just stood there, until Doua motioned to her to sit back down.

"What if _our_ laws dictated that we should keep moral superiority, no matter in whose territory we are?" Marco asked thoughtfully.

"Then we would have a conflict of viewpoints," said one of the Kelbrid. "Both sides must be willing accept the inevitable consequences of such a conflict. In this case, since you did not bring a court system with you," a murmur of quiet Kelbrid laughter went up through the crowd, "you must accept the decision made by ours."

Prince Jake clenched his fists. After a moment, he relaxed them again, and sighed loudly, as if trying to expel his anger. "And what consequences of this 'conflict of viewpoints' would _you_ be willing to accept?"

There was another murmur through the crowd of philosophers, this time a murmur of fervent discussion.

"What do you propose?" one of the Kelbrid finally asked.

Jake paused. Then he turned around to face the rest of us. "What _do_ we propose?" he asked softly.

"Them not killing us would be good," Marco whispered.

"We could use some supplies, maybe," Jeanne suggested.

((We should ask what, if anything, was salvaged from the Blade ship and the _Rachel_,)) I said. ((But it would be helpful to know what our sentence is to be, before we would know what would be advisable to ask for.))

Prince Jake nodded.

"Can we ask what our sentence for trespassing is to be?" he asked.

More murmuring.

"We must deliberate, first," a Kelbrid said. "In private. I might suggest to you to do the same."

Doua's crew got up, and escorted us away from the center of the stadium. There was a large doorway in the side of the stadium wall, and we were led through, into a large, empty chamber. Doua and Vuhl seemed tense as they walked along in front of my friends and I, but they no longer seemed particularly angry at us. Even Bahm looked a little unsettled. All four of them backed away from us, apparently thinking to give us some privacy while we made our own deliberations.

"Okay," Prince Jake said in english. "What will they probably decide?"

((There's about two possibilities,)) Tobias said. ((Either they kill us, or let us go.))

"I see a third possibility," Marco said thoughtfully. "Maybe they hold us hostage. They could use us as a warning to deter other Andalites and humans from trespassing. You know, like 'don't come any closer or the Andalite gets it!'"

((Do you really believe they would do something like that?)) I asked.

"We know next to nothing about these Kelbrid," Marco pointed out. "For all we know, maybe they're going to throw us a surprise party!"

(('Throw us a surprise party'?)) Tobias repeated slowly.

"Hey, it was the first thing that came to my mind, okay?"

Prince Jake looked up at the ceiling and mouthed the words 'why me?' Then he looked back down at us, serious again. "Okay," he said. "We're reasonably sure they're going to let us go, kill us, or keep holding us prisoner. If they let us go, there's no problem, so we don't need to worry about that scenario. The question is, what's the plan if they decide to kill us, and what's the plan if they decide to hold us hostage?"

"I like Ax's idea to ask what's left from the Blade ship and the _Rachel_," Marco said. "It would be good to have, say, a shredder or a Dracon beam, regardless of what they decide."

((Yeah, right, like they'd let us keep weapons,)) Tobias scoffed.

Suddenly, Jake's eyes widened. "Guys . . . what was on the Blade ship? What did the Yeerks take from us, right before the end of the war? Something that doesn't look at all like a weapon?"

"Huh?" Marco said, perplexed. "What are we possibly going to do with the blue box? Last time I checked, all of us already have the power to morph." He furrowed his brows in an expression of confusion. "You are talking about the blue box, right?"

Prince Jake looked over his shoulder at Doua, Vuhl, Zu, and Bahm. Then he just looked at Marco and grinned.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17 (Jake)

I had a plan.

There were hundreds of things that could go wrong. And I was almost positive that Ax and Menderash would never approve of it. But it was a plan. Which was a lot better than anything we'd had for the last two days.

"Are you gonna fill the rest of us in, Jake?" Marco prodded me.

"Later," I answered offhandedly. "We don't know how much time we have right now. But here's what we've got to do. We need to get them to hold us hostage, but I think I can take care of that, if it comes to it. Then we need to see whatever's been salvaged from the Blade ship. We need the blue box, first and foremost. Other than that, we could maybe use some clothing, not to mention see if there's any food left."

((Hallelujah!)) Tobias exclaimed.

"What about other weapons? Dracon beams?" Santorelli suggested cautiously.

"No," I said flatly. "They're not stupid, they'll figure out those are weapons. And then they'll just trust us even less than they already do. If that's possible. And besides, if my plan works, we won't need anything but the blue box."

"Jake, this had better be one hell of a plan," Marco said, giving me a doubtful look.

"Oh, it's a plan, alright," I laughed.

Doua's crew left the room we were in, apparently having business to attend to with the philosophers, as I began to explain the basics of my plan. The details would come later. If I was right, we'd have plenty of time to discuss everything after the trial was over.

I had been right about one thing, at least. Menderash and Ax didn't approve of the plan. Menderash was downright adamant that we had no right to give away Andalite morphing technology to aliens that we knew nothing about. Ax was extremely hesitant, but he at least seemed willing to weigh our need against the risk we were taking. Marco immediately began picking apart the plan, looking for holes. And Tobias didn't think it would work at all.

((The Kelbrid aren't going to like this plan, Jake,)) Tobias pointed out. ((And we can't conceivably trick them into it. What makes you think they'll go along?))

"Hey, if you have a better idea . . . " I retorted. A pathetic defense. I knew Tobias was probably right. But I had to hold on to hope. This had to work. I'd make it work.

Jeanne and Santorelli didn't have anything to contribute. It was becoming more and more apparent that they didn't seem to quite fit in with the rest of the group. During the months aboard the _Rachel_, nothing had seemed wrong, but now, in this new and much more dangerous situation, the difference was obvious.

Jeanne and Santorelli were standing back, away from the main group, just listening as we discussed plans. They seemed alienated, maybe even intimidated by the rest of us. I was the only one they knew, and we all knew each other better than any of us knew them. And, besides, we were the famous war heroes, the Animorphs. Who wouldn't be intimidated?

But it worried me, a little. How could we ever work together as a team unless we could all understand each other?

I didn't have too much time to worry about it. It wasn't much longer before the philosopher-court had come to a decision about us. One of the Kelbrid philosophers, a female, came to get us. She led us, still bound in our various restraints, out of the big, empty room, and back to the center of the stadium, scarcely taking her suspicious gaze off of us as we shuffled along. Once again, we stood before the hundreds of glimmering Kelbrid philosophers, waiting to hear our verdict.

"You are found guilty of trespassing," an older-looking Kelbrid said, without standing up. "The usual sentence for trespassing is death." There was a brief pause, and I heard Jeanne's breath catch in her throat. "However, your circumstances are . . . unusual," the Kelbrid went on. "First of all, it has been brought to our attention that four of you are, in fact, very important persons on your respective worlds. Jake Berenson, Tobias Fangor, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil, and Marco Esteban. You are four of the six that are known as the Animorphs, correct?"

((How could they possibly know that?)) Tobias demanded.

"Doua's crew probably looked through the Blade ship's and the _Rachel_'s records while they were holding us captive," Marco whispered. "And the Blade ship would've had files on us."

"Second," the Kelbrid philosopher went on, "it is somewhat unknown whether or not at least one of you has, in fact, trespassed. Due to this, very slight, uncertainty, some of us are reluctant to put you to death." As he said this, the philosopher shot a glance at Doua's crew. It was hard to follow his gaze across the stadium, but, as I turned to see where he was looking, I thought I saw Zu looking down in embarrassment.

"Because of this," the Kelbrid continued, "we intend to keep you under confinement for an indefinite sentence. Just as good as death, but not quite so . . . final. That should appeal to everyone involved, I think." He looked around the stadium, to see the other Kelbrid nodding in approval.

I heard Marco whisper under his breath to Ax. "I told you so."

"Now, to discuss the matter of our conflict of viewpoints," the aged Kelbrid went on. "Since we found you guilty by our own means, perhaps at odds with your peoples' laws, we owe you some sort of recompense. We have given you ample time to think on this point. What, within reason, of course, would you take as compensation for your sentence?"

I stepped forward. "We want to see whatever has been salvaged from our ship, as well as the other ship that Doua and her crew found when they found us," I announced, in as calm and as authoritative a voice as I could muster. I know I was a lot more scared than I sounded.

The Kelbrid who had been speaking to us nodded to Doua's crew. Doua and Vuhl got up, and were joined by some other female Kelbrid. Together, about a dozen Kelbrid left the stadium. There was a tense silence that stretched on and on, as we all, Animorphs and Kelbrid philosophers, waited for them to come back. It felt like forever.

We were all fidgeting nervously, afraid to say anything to each other for fear of attracting attention to ourselves, when Doua, Vuhl, and the other females came back. A platform, carrying a pile of what looked like so much junk, floated into the stadium, surrounded by the female Kelbrid. Vuhl and Doua stood out, because they were the only Kelbrid who were walking on the ground alongside the platform. The others were flying above the two of them, their wings beating a steady rhythm that Vuhl uselessly, perhaps unconsciously, mimicked. Doua walked next to her, occasionally glancing in her direction with an expression that looked a lot like compassion.

The flying Kelbrid landed. The platform came to rest, hovering a few feet from us.

((I see it,)) Tobias announced. ((The blue box.))

I stepped toward the platform. It didn't take me long to spot it. A solitary glimpse of blue in a pile of dull-colored debris. I rifled through the pile, digging it out. Once I'd carefully worked it free, I held it up for the court to see.

"What is it?" one of them asked.

"Just a trinket. Not really anything of value, just of . . . personal value," I lied, trying to sound casual. They seemed to buy it.

We dug through the rest of the pile, looking for anything else we might need. Everything that looked like a weapon, or that might even have been a potential improvised weapon, had been removed. So there wasn't much left. Mostly wires and bits of circuit board, some small bits of metal, a few sets of clothes, and what was left of our rations.

We picked out some clothing that didn't look too damaged, the rations, and, of course, the blue box. Ax tried to find some electronic equipment that could be used to build something useful, but he eventually gave up. The Kelbrid had been completely thorough in removing anything we could use to escape.

Well, _almost_ completely thorough.

I carried the blue box as the seven of us were led out of the stadium.

"Out of the frying pan . . . " Marco commented darkly as we were led onto the platform that would take us to our new prison.

((And into the fire,)) Tobias finished.

* * *

I realize I now have forty reviews (OMG!) and therefore owe an extra chapter, but seeing as I have been fighting with writer's block, and thus I was barely able to get _this_ chapter up on time, I'm going to shoot for next week. In any case, I promise that I will put up that extra update sooner or later. Sorry for the delay.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 (Marco)

It was a lovely little joyride, our trip across the Kelbrid planet to our latest prison cell. Doua and company stood at attention around us on our floating platform, while a guard of unfamiliar Kelbrid flew around and above us, silent and stern.

And, to top it off, we were _still_ in handcuffs.

We'd left the Kelbrid city a while ago, and were now floating along above the countryside. It was almost funny, how far their prison was from their city. The Kelbrid kept their criminals at arm's length, for sure. We'd been flying for hours.

I looked out over the Kelbrid plains for about the billionth time, trying to enjoy our little sightseeing tour. Hey, when you're an unwilling tourist on an alien planet, might as well make the most of it. Right? That's my philosophy, anyway.

Well, turns out that the Kelbrid planet was pretty boring. Aside from a vaguely interesting mesa, and some plaza-looking place that was apparently an ancient Kelbrid sparring ground, the trip was a total snore. There was nothing to see but the odd Kelbrid plants that passed for grass on their planet.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. There was one other thing. The eerie Kelbrid moon hung low in the sky to our left, visible even in the daylight. It was almost a full moon, just a sliver missing. It wasn't white, like our moon, but an earthy brown color. And, as I looked closer, I could see blackened canyons and craters scarring the surface.

I felt a chill run down my spine. There was something about that moon . . . I didn't like it there, hanging over my head. I just didn't like it.

I looked away, trying to find something else to be interested in. Hmm, was that a new plant over there? No, it was just another one of the dark green triangle-plants.

I looked up again, but not at the moon this time. The Kelbrid sky was gray, the color of an old photograph. Through the sky floated faint, wispy clouds that looked oddly colorful against the gray sky. Ochre, sky-blue, and grayish-green mists drifted slowly across the sky, forming interesting patterns.

The dead silence of this trip was really starting to get to me. And if I had to play 'what does that cloud look like?' to get people talking, I was more than willing to do it.

"Check it out, that one looks like an Andalite," I blurted, pointing to one of the blue clouds. One of the Kelbrid guards glanced at me, as if angry that I would dare to speak. After a look from Doua, however, the guard apparently decided to let it go.

I guess Tobias had already seen the same cloud I'd seen, because he almost immediately said, ((Yeah. An Andalite wearing a top hat.))

"Hey, it could happen," I said, looking at it again. It really _did_ look like an Andalite in a top hat. I had to stifle a giggle at the mental image.

((I assure you, no sensible Andalite would ever wear a top hat,)) Ax huffed.

"What is a 'top hat'?" Menderash asked.

"Calm down, Ax," I said, rolling my eyes. "We're just having fun."

"Correction. _Marco's_ just having fun," Jake said.

"Yeah, because we all know that Jake can't," I said. He gave me an annoyed look, and I shrugged. "Sorry, man, but you know you walked right into that one."

"Marco?"

"Yes, Jake?"

"Shut up."

"Yes, sir."

Jake gave me a glare, which only proved my earlier point. The boy did not know how to have fun. Especially not lately, and especially not during a life-or-death mission. Which, if you ask me, was the one time we all needed a little lightheartedness.

With the mood officially killed, courtesy of Jake, it was back to stony silence for pretty much the rest of the trip. Like I said before, it was a lovely little joyride.

I sighed, and looked back up at the sky. There was an ochre and gray-green cloud. If I tilted my head just right, it looked sort of like a gorilla . . .

I was just about to go insane from boredom when a gigantic canyon slid into view beneath us. It wasn't quite the Grand Canyon, but it was close. After seeing nothing but plains for so long, it was a pretty awesome sight.

Suddenly, I wasn't bored anymore.

As we got closer, our platform dropped downward, towards the chasm. It turned, and we were soon flying down through the canyon, skimming alongside the clay-red rock wall. It was pretty cool. Way cooler than anything that had happened on this stupid mission so far, anyway. Think Star Wars meets Indiana Jones.

As we approached a wide, dark cavern in the rock face, the platform we were riding started to slow down. We came to a stop in front of a ledge that led into the cave.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I spotted about four female Kelbrid waiting for us inside the cave. These new Kelbrid were about a foot bigger than any of the females we'd seen before, and they had blade-feathers that were decorated with some sort of red metal that glinted ominously in the low light. The red-scaled Kelbrid each held long staffs that looked an awful lot like weapons.

"These are Warriors," Zu whispered to us. "Do what they say, and you will not be harmed. We will follow as soon as we can, but for now, I am afraid you are on your own."

* * *

Another week of "I barely had time to get one chapter done." Sorry, everyone. I think things will pick up again at this point, though. -fingers crossed-

If I'm still writer's-blocked next week, and if anyone's getting impatient, I do have another option. I could post the first chapter of The Rebirth (my book 56) instead of the extra update of The Difference. I already have the first chapter of The Rebirth written, so, if anybody wants a sneak preview . . . let me know.

Either way, though, I _will_ at least get the extra update up before The Difference hits chapter 22. I can promise that much.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19 (Tobias)

A very military-like troop of about a dozen Kelbrid Warriors led us through a dark, gloomy maze of tunnels carved in the rock. We followed, bound and helpless.

I struggled for lift in the stagnant air. Utterly pointless, of course. It wasn't like I could go anywhere. My leash, still tied around my leg, was now held tightly by one of the Warriors, who would nearly yank me out of the air if I even ventured out of her sight.

I should've just given up. I could have easily perched on Ax or Marco or even Jake's shoulder. Rested. But something about spreading my wings, staying in the air, ignoring the leash on my leg . . . it made our situation feel a little less hopeless.

Or maybe the dark, enclosed tunnel was just making me restless. Birds don't like to be underground.

"You. The four that are called Animorphs. This way. You three. Follow her," a Kelbrid voice barked in the darkness.

"What?" Jake asked, sounding panicked. "You're separating us?"

There was a collective, sharp intake of breath. Santorelli looked pleadingly at Jake, as if he could do something about this sudden new turn of events. Jeanne defensively took a step closer to Marco. Menderash just stared blankly at Ax. They must have been exchanging private thought-speak goodbyes.

"Don't argue. Just obey," another Kelbrid said menacingly to Jake.

What could any of us do? We had no choice but to leave our three newest team members behind. Jeanne, Menderash, Santorelli, and about three or four Kelbrid Warriors turned down a side corridor, and disappeared from our sight.

I could practically see the wheels in Jake's head turning. This changed the plan, big time. It might still work, at least by what he'd told us.

But getting the other three out of here suddenly got complicated.

"Can you at least tell us why?" Jake demanded, but I could hear the helplessness in his voice.

"You're to be placed under high security. They aren't," a Kelbrid said curtly.

"What? Why?" Marco asked furiously.

A Warrior swung her staff at Marco in a motion strikingly similar to a school teacher hitting a disobedient student with a ruler. "Ow!" Marco yelled, rubbing his arm where the staff had hit him. A different Kelbrid said, "We were informed that those called the Animorphs are vital hostages, and dangerous. However, nothing about the other three was mentioned. We are to assume they are not important. No more questions."

Marco grumbled audibly, but none of us said anything else.

The four of us that remained shuffled sullenly down the tunnel. Or flew, in my case. Deeper and deeper into the catacombs we trudged. Finally, after what felt like hours, we arrived at our cell. A tiny, gloomy, bare room. A hole in the rock.

A glass door was opened, and we entered. The Warriors unbound us, and shoved our meager belongings into a pile. I looked around the cell. Rock walls on all sides, except the door, which was glass. Dim light, coming from tiny lamps set in the walls. A pipe in one wall. Some metal things that could have been beds, except for how rough and oddly shaped they were.

A prison cell. Remarkably like a jail on earth. Except that, if the beds were any indication, this one wasn't designed for humans.

There was a click as the glass door was locked behind us. Three Warriors stayed behind to guard us, while the rest disappeared from sight.

"Okay, big Jake, what do we do now?" Marco asked.

"Now we wait for Doua's people," Jake answered. "They said they'd follow us as soon as they could, right?"

((Right,)) I confirmed.

It was a long wait. In the meantime, Jake explained the rest of the details of his escape plan.

((What do we do about Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash?)) I asked.

"I don't know," Jake admitted. "If this plan works, there's going to be all kinds of chaos down here. We'll just have to hope that we can use the confusion to get them out."

((That's taking a big chance, Jake.))

"I know."

Finally, I could hear footsteps coming down the tunnel to our cell. Zu, Bahm, Vuhl, and Doua stepped into view, looking nervous. I could imagine that they, being creatures of the air, didn't enjoy being underground much more than I did.

A Warrior opened the glass door for them, and then shut it again behind them, locking them in the cell with us. She kept her hand on the door, looking ready to jump into our cell if we did anything she didn't like.

"We owe you an apology, _kuldir_," Bahm began. "We didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Marco tilted his head to the side, looking confused. "What, you didn't expect us to be locked away? Then what _was_ supposed to happen?"

"We did not realize how . . . how little capacity for understanding the philosophers possessed. We had hoped that they would give you a lesser sentence, and then arrange transport back to your planet. We had no idea, I assure you, that it would come to this," Bahm said.

Jake stepped forward. He seemed a lot less surprised by the Kelbrid's sudden change of heart than Marco had been. "So, first you capture us, hold us prisoner, take us to your planet for judgment, and then you're surprised when we're punished for trespassing? What game are you playing here?"

_What game are _you_ playing, Jake? _I thought, trying to read his expression. It was no use. His face was a mask. Had he really expected this to happen?

Bahm looked at Zu, beckoning him to explain. Zu nodded, as if agreeing with Bahm that he was the best one to explain what needed to be explained. "We are just now beginning to realize that we are . . . an oddity among Kelbrid," Zu said, a little uncomfortably. "By the time we found you, _kuldir_, we had been flying through space, looking for the One, for years. Most of our lives, probably. This itself is unusual for Kelbrid. Most never even venture off world. But it has been many long years since we've been here. Here, this planet, the place we used to call home. Too long, we now realize. We've chased the One across the galaxy and back. We've visited _kuldir_ planets. We've risked ourselves to protect strangers and aliens against the threat of the One. But we never fully realized, until now, how much all this would change us." Zu paused for a second, and I could see that the others were subtly shaking. They seemed upset by what Zu was saying.

"Now that we've returned to the place we once called home, it has become obvious that we don't fit in, anymore. We . . . probably never will again. We've learned empathy and compassion for those that are different. For _kuldir_. We've fought it, and fought hard, but we've . . . changed. We've learned things that no Kelbrid is ever supposed to know. In some way I'm not sure _kuldir_ can understand, we aren't even entirely Kelbrid anymore. We are something different." Zu paused again, as if looking for the right words, then he said, "We are the _kuldir_, now."

I don't think the others really got the full weight of Zu's speech. Maybe Ax did. He knew, after all, what it's like to be utterly cut off, utterly alienated, from your entire species.

But I don't think anybody knows what that feels like better than I do. I don't even have a species. I'm a freak-show mix of red-tailed hawk and human. I'm both. Or I'm neither. Or maybe I'm something more. I don't know.

All I knew was that what had happened to me was, in some ways, a lot like what had happened to these four Kelbrid. They didn't even consider themselves completely Kelbrid, anymore. They were the Kelbrid who didn't fear and hate _kuldir_. Who had, without even meaning to, turned their back on everything they'd known.

And, somehow, in doing so, they had become something else entirely. Something different.

They weren't quite Kelbrid, just as I wasn't quite human. They were a mix of Kelbrid and _kuldir_. Maybe both, maybe neither. Maybe something more.

Even though I knew they couldn't hear me, I felt I needed to say it.

((I understand.))

* * *

Okay, so here's one extra update paid back. Of course, now I owe another one! So goes the story of my life. But now that my writer's block is gone, I think it should come quickly. Quickly-er, anyway.

viennacantabile: Wow. You really like this fic, don't you? And as for why the Kelbrid warmed up to the animorphs after they attacked them . . . well, hmm, that is intriguing, isn't it? ;D But, just in case I don't get around to explaining it in the story, I'll say right now that this is partially to do with Kelbrid females having a somewhat fighting-based social structure. The rest is explained in this chapter.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 (Jake)

With one mystery explained, it was then our turn to make our own explanations to the Kelbrid.

It was finally time to reveal our escape plan.

And, as it turns out, Tobias was right. The Kelbrid didn't like what we had in mind.

"No!" Doua shouted as soon as I'd finished speaking. "Didn't you just hear what Zu said? We're already too different from Kelbrid, too much like _kuldir_. We won't do this. We can't. Never."

"You said you were sorry for bringing us here," Marco shot back. "So we give you a chance to make it up to us, and you turn it down? That doesn't sound like you're very sorry, to me."

"We did not mean for that to happen," Doua grated. "But this . . . this is blasphemy!"

"Why?" Tobias asked. He had morphed human, so he could enter the conversation. "Why is this blasphemy?"

"Because . . . you, _kuldir_, will become Kelbrid, and we, Kelbrid, will become . . . _kuldir_! How is that anything but blasphemy?!"

"Okay, look," I said, rubbing my temples. "We aren't asking you to permanently become, well, _kuldir_. And we don't want to permanently become Kelbrid. We just switch places long enough to confuse the guards. Then we keep switching back and forth behind their backs, create some chaos, and run for it. It shouldn't be-"

"We understood the plan the first time you explained it," Doua scowled. "Explaining it a second time will not make us any more inclined to agree."

"Vuhl? Bahm? Zu? What do you think?" Tobias said quietly, trying to get an opinion other than Doua's.

"Doua is right. We may be different from most Kelbrid, and we may have some slight empathy for _kuldir_, but we are still Kelbrid. This is madness," Bahm said.

Zu was looking up at the ceiling. "I don't know," he said at length. "It is a radical proposal, that much is sure. But what is it we're really afraid of? No misunderstandings ought to be possible from this. If I understand correctly, we will gain each others' most basic instincts, correct? Those can't be misunderstood, difference of perspective aside. So what are we really afraid of?"

Bahm glared at Zu. "You know what we're really afraid of. You _know_."

That cryptic statement earned confused looks from all us _kuldir_ in the room. But the Kelbrid just shook it off like nothing had happened.

"What about you, Vuhl? You have a lot to gain from this plan," I said, deciding to let Bahm and Zu's odd conversation go. There were more important issues at hand right now.

Vuhl looked at her injured stump of a wing as she considered. We had explained that the morphing process would heal her wing, make it just as good as new. It wasn't clear whether or not she believed us, but even the chance of getting her wing back had to look good to her.

"I want to fly again," she finally said quietly. "But . . . "

"But what?" I asked.

"But this decision should not be based on me," Vuhl finished.

"Come on," I said, changing tactics again. "Zu's right. Nothing bad can possibly come of this, unless something goes wrong. None of you have anything to lose. You have only to gain."

Doua glared at me. "You don't know our reasons. You're still _kuldir_. You don't know what we have to lose."

"So enlighten us!" Marco demanded.

"No!" Doua shot back stubbornly. "Some things are never to be shared."

I massaged my temples, trying to think. Trying to get rid of stress, as Doua and Marco continued to argue. My hunch about Doua's crew, that they were more compassionate for _kuldir_ than they had let on, had proved to be right.

Don't ask how I'd known that. Maybe having to learn to predict my team so well helped me learn to predict other people, too. Or maybe my time with Cassie had taught me to be more perceptive.

Cassie . . . there was a tiny part of me that still, even after three years, wished that things had worked out between us.

I shook my head, trying to shake off that last thought. This wasn't the time to start thinking about Cassie.

"Fine," Marco was saying to Doua. "But, you have to admit, you owe us something."

Doua was about to retort when Bahm announced, "We have reached a decision." He and Zu had been discussing quietly in the background of Marco and Doua's more vehement arguing.

"What?" I asked, confused. Then I remembered. "Oh yeah. Males make decisions. Right."

Bahm nodded. "We have decided . . ." He paused, nearly choking on his words, as if he didn't quite believe what he was about to say. " . . . to help you," he finished.

I smiled, pleased that the Kelbrid had decided to go along, and nodded to Ax. He stepped over to the pile of our belongings and picked up the blue box, which had been sitting on top. Gingerly holding it in his seven-fingered hand, he held it out to the Kelbrid.

My mind suddenly churned with memories. Memories of six years ago. How it all started. An alien prince and a construction site. The great Prince Elfangor, the blue box, and the power that would change our lives forever.

Some time after that, but before the war was over, I saw a future version of Ax, and I mistook him for Elfangor. Now, four years later, it suddenly struck me again how much the now-not-so-young Andalite looked like his brother.

As he held the morphing cube out for Doua and her people to touch, I didn't see Ax giving this power to four aliens. I saw Elfangor giving it to five human kids.

What was the difference? To Elfangor, _we_ had been the aliens. He knew us about as well as we knew these Kelbrid. And here we were, trusting them, just as Elfangor had trusted us.

But that really wasn't a fair comparison, was it? Elfangor gave us the morphing power so we could fight a war. A war he knew he would never see the end of. His intentions had been completely altruistic. But we were only giving this power to these Kelbrid just to save our own skins. Not the world. Just four people.

Seeing that difference, between us and Elfangor, nearly made me ill. What he gave away to save the world, we were giving away just to save ourselves. Total selflessness, versus utter self-interest.

But . . . maybe Elfangor was wrong. Not for the first time in the past three years, I thought that maybe saving the world had never been the greatest good. Looking around at my friends, I thought that maybe, just maybe, the world didn't even matter except for the lives that it held. Like the lives of my friends. Marco, my best friend since forever. Tobias, the harassed, pathetic kid I'd long ago saved from bullies at school. Ax, the Andalite _aristh_ who had always looked to me for guidance, as his prince.

As four alien hands reached out, tentatively, afraid, for the very same blue box that had forever changed our lives, I wondered what was really most important. The world, or a single life?

Not for the first time, I wondered what would have happened if I had stopped to think about such things while Rachel still lived.

And then . . . this might sound crazy, but I got a strange feeling at that moment, when four alien hands touched the blue box that Ax was holding. A feeling that this moment was a turning point. That something huge and unstoppable had just been set into motion, and there was no turning back.

As soon as it came, the feeling was gone. I shook my head, causing Marco to give me a curious glance. It was probably just déjà vu.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21 (Jake)

We decided to let the Kelbrid pick which of us they each wanted to 'switch places' with. We didn't really care either way, and we wanted to keep the Kelbrid happy. Doua and Vuhl got the first pick.

Doua picked me. This was a surprise. I'd expected her to go for Ax. After all, let's face it, human bodies are pretty pathetic. But I guess she must have realized that I was the leader of our group. Or maybe she just didn't like Andalites. I don't know.

Vuhl picked Tobias. This was not a surprise. I figured she would go for the only one of us whose natural form had wings.

Bahm and Zu were then left with Ax and Marco, respectively. Which, quite predictably, infuriated Ax.

((This is an insult!)) he exclaimed. ((How can these Kelbrid consider an Andalite body to be less desirable than a human! It is absurd! No offense meant, Prince Jake.))

I rolled my eyes, but other than that I ignored Ax's outburst. Instead, I got right down to business. I turned to face Doua, and said, "Okay, remember, you just focus on me. Focus on my DNA flowing into you."

Doua gently, almost nervously held my wrist. I felt myself getting sleepy, as was normal for any creature being acquired. I yawned, causing Doua to give me a confused look.

"Did it work?" Doua asked.

"Yes," I said when I'd snapped out of the acquiring trance. Then I reached for Doua's wrist, and focused on her. She slumped, going into the same drowsy state that I'd just come out of. Once her DNA was inside me, I let go, but I kept focusing, holding an image of the Kelbrid in my mind.

The first changes were my insides. I felt a shifting, nauseous feeling as my organs rearranged. My bones made crunching noises as they shifted, reformed, and realigned. My lungs grew bigger and stronger, making it oddly easy to breathe.

My vision changed subtly as my eyes changed into red-glass Kelbrid eyes. There was a sickening jolt as my windpipe closed for just a split second, reforming my mouth into the Kelbrid's breathing holes. My skull shifted into the polygonal shape of the Kelbrid head, and my hair disappeared.

My arms and legs grew thin, and there was a crunch as my knees reversed direction. My feet flattened like paper, and each foot pinched out into three points, which stretched out to form the Kelbrid's blade-talons. With a slight lurch, my talons bent to point down, lifting me off the ground and balancing me by the talon-tips of each foot. I tried to move the talons, but my feet were rigid. I guess they didn't need to be able to grasp or flex, since their only purpose seemed to be as weapons.

The ankles and knees were a whole different matter. I suddenly had such easy flexibility, quite unlike any other creature I'd been before. I wasn't as graceful as a tiger, but my joints felt much looser, unhindered. I could move almost without any effort at all.

Wings unfurled from my back, and my chest muscles had to bulk up to support them. There were three joints in the wing, and as I tested them out, I noticed that they moved with the same easy freedom as my arms and legs.

Finally, the last change to occur was the appearance of the Kelbrid blade-feathers all across my body, sharp triangles sprouting out of my torso, my arms, my legs, my wings.

The morph was complete. I was a Kelbrid.

The first thing I noticed were two Kelbrid males, and a female. I wanted to take the males for myself. But was I big enough to fight the other female and win? I sized her up, and she did the same to me. We were almost evenly matched, but I thought I was-

"Aaaahhh!"

The strange sound caught both of our attention. The other female Kelbrid and I immediately turned to look.

It was a strange, pink-skinned creature. Not a Kelbrid.

Not Kelbrid! Different from me.

And different meant dangerous.

I flared my wings, ready to attack. The other female Kelbrid did the same.

((Uh, Jake, Tobias, Ax? Doua, Zu, Bahm, Vuhl? You guys all there? Um, Jake and Tobias, you better calm down. You look like you're ready to attack Doua. That's Doua. She morphed you, Jake, remember?))

Strange voices. Sound, but not sound. I looked around, trying to find the source.

((I am in control also, Marco. Prince Jake, Tobias, reassert your individual consciousnesses!)) another voice said.

((Okay, I'm okay,)) a third voice said. ((Wow. Didn't expect that. So, what, we're left with Jake and our Kelbrid buddies who still need to come around? Hey, Jake! Come off it!))

Were those voices coming from the other Kelbrid? How?

A flash of movement. A blur of blue.

Another _kuldir_! Foreign. Strange. Threatening.

I swung my wing at it. It saw what I was doing and swung its bladed tail at me. My wing and its tail collided, but we seemed to be evenly matched in strength. The blade nicked my skin, and blood began to seep out.

((Okay, Jake and Bahm, you're both lost in the morph. You're fighting each other! Stop it, right now! Jake, your name is Jake. You are human. Bahm, your name is Bahm. You are a Kelbrid. Snap out of it, both of you!))

The voice was familiar. Where had I heard that voice before? _Marco, that's Marco!_ another voice in my head said. But this voice came from me. From . . . something inside me. Something that called itself Jake.

Jake! My name was Jake! I was human!

((Whoa!)) I shouted, suddenly aware of who I was. ((Okay, I'm in control now. Man, sorry guys. Wow. I didn't expect the Kelbrid mind to put up this much of a fight.)) I felt fairly embarrassed for getting so caught up in the morph. Normally, sentient beings didn't have much in the way of instincts. So the Kelbrid mind had caught me by surprise.

But it was something else, too. The Kelbrid mind was . . . alien. I can't really describe what it was that made it so strange, but it was. More so than a Hork-bajir or even a Yeerk. The Kelbrid mind just didn't quite think the same way as anything else I'd ever morphed. And so, unable to understand the mind, I'd been overpowered by it.

And, it seemed, the Kelbrid were experiencing the same problem with our minds. Vuhl, who was now a red-tailed hawk, flew frantically around our small cell, lost in pure raptor panic in the enclosed space. Bahm, in Andalite form, was also looking restless. Andalites don't like closed spaces much more than hawks do. His stalk eyes whipped back and forth at hyper speed, and he pawed the ground with his hooves. Every now and then, he would take off across the cell, bolting in panic before realizing he couldn't go anywhere.

Zu and Doua, morphed reflections of Marco and I, were especially odd to see. Doua was pacing intensely, yelling something incoherent every once in a while. Now and then, she'd press her hands against her head, as if trying to get a grip on a powerful headache. But then she'd just shout and start pacing again. Zu, on the other hand, was doing what Marco had always done best. Lounging. He just lay there on the cold floor, sprawled out like he was enjoying a day at the beach, with a serene smile plastered on his face.

Marco was laughing that weird Kelbrid laugh at the bizarre scene before us. "Hup hup hup hup!" He looked at me, still laughing, and said, ((It's just like looking in a mirror, isn't it?))

* * *

Author's note: I apologize for the late update. And I must apologize even more for what I'm about to say. Which is that I'm going to have to stop doing regular updates altogether for a while. Yes, I know, you all look forward _so much _to the new chapter every Monday, and there will surely be much weeping and gnashing of teeth for this, but fear not, for it is temporary. I hope.

There are several reasons for me needing to take a hiatus. One: I need to get caught up on the extra updates I owe (which I will continue to pay back whenever I can). I currently owe two extra chapters, and I seem to accumulate them faster than I can pay them back, and having to keep up with regular updates doesn't help me at all. Two: the new semester is underway, and I need to focus on school first, fanfics second. Three: I have writer's block yet again, and I have a very bad feeling that this is no ordinary writer's block. You see, every year or so I get what I have come to call Epic Writer's Block, which is writer's block that lasts for a few months, rather than just days or weeks. I can tell when it's happening, because, strange as this sounds, my artistic ability seems to be inversely proportional to my writing ability. And I've been drawing again, so that's not a good sign.

So, in the interest of writing quality chapters over quantity, I've decided to take a breather. I hope no-one is too disappointed.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22 (Ax)

((Can they even hear our thought-speak?)) Marco asked me, without taking his eyes off of the bizarre scene before us. None of us could help but stare at the four bewildering replicants of ourselves, who were now just beginning to gain control over their new instincts.

((Theoretically, they should,)) I answered Marco. ((Morphing technology was designed so that it enables the ability to hear thought-speak, as well as the ability to speak it. Thus, when you morph a creature that cannot normally hear thought-speak, such as an insect, which possesses only a rudimentary brain, you are still able to communicate. This works by a Z-space connection that preserves-))

((Okay! They can hear us. That's all I wanted to know,)) Marco interrupted me.

((These eyes! Amazing!)) Vuhl commented as she flew down to perch on Tobias's shoulder.

((Where are those voices coming from?)) Doua wondered to herself, looking around.

((It's called thought-speak,)) Jake said. ((We can hear your thoughts, so long as you direct them to us, and you can hear ours.))

Doua didn't say anything more, but she gave Prince Jake a surprised glance, then narrowed her eyes in a very human-like expression of suspicion. As if it were his fault that he had heard the thoughts she had, apparently unintentionally, projected.

((Okay, everybody's sane again. Well, relatively speaking,)) Marco said. ((Now, can we please get these Kelbrid some morphing outfits? Lucky thing the girls aren't here . . . )) He trailed off as Prince Jake gave him a fierce, disapproving glare. Marco looked down, embarrassed.

This behavior perplexed me. Why did Prince Jake disapprove of the mere mention of our missing members? Could it be that he still wished to deny the reasons why neither Cassie nor Rachel were on this mission? I did not like to think so. Such obstinate behavior was not befitting a prince. Not even one that was human.

Prince Jake had explained to me, during our two-day captivity in the Kelbrid city, why he had not allowed Cassie to come on this mission. He had told me that he had left Cassie behind so that she could continue her work with the Hork-bajir.

I had refrained from saying anything to him about it, but I had been ashamed of my prince's decision, as well as his poor excuse for making it. The Hork-bajir were certainly capable of governing themselves at this point. They did not need any more help from humans, and even if they did, surely there were humans besides Cassie that would be willing to help them.

No, I knew that was not the true reason Jake had told Cassie to stay on earth.

Prince Jake had told Cassie to stay on earth, I realized, simply because it would have been too painful for him if she had come. She and Jake had long-since gone their separate ways, and, apparently, they had grown more distant than I had realized.

At least, that was the only explanation I could think of. If I could imagine any other reason for Prince Jake's actions, I would have gladly believed it instead. Such emotional judgment was a poor excuse for abandoning a fellow warrior. Even one such as Cassie, a sentimental human who had never approved of war.

If Prince Jake had left me behind on a mission for such foolish reasons, I would never have forgiven him.

I shook my head, a gesture which I had long-since adopted from humans, to clear my thoughts. Now was no time to worry about things that were already said and done.

((Alright, now that's taken care of,)) Prince Jake said, once Doua and Zu were outfitted with some of our extra morphing outfits. ((But where are the guards? Surely, they've noticed by now that something weird was going on in here?))

That was part of the plan. The guards were supposed to have seen us morphing. But when I looked at the glass door of the cell, the guards were nowhere to be seen.

((Where'd they go?)) Tobias asked.

((Crap. What now? We need the guards for the plan to work! Why the hell would they have just run off like that?)) Prince Jake said angrily.

((Well, let's just work with what we've got,)) Marco said brightly. ((Bahm, see if you can break the glass with your tail.))

((My . . . oh, right. Tail,)) Bahm stuttered nervously. He appeared to still be disoriented by the experience of being in a new body. But he cocked his tail, and struck at the glass door.

FWAP! Clunk.

((Nothing. Not even a scratch,)) Vuhl said distractedly.

((Well, of course,)) Zu remarked. ((It's Kelbrid glass, not whatever you _kuldir_ have. You would need something at least as hard as diamond to break it.))

((Oh, well, that's just-)) Marco began, but was cut off.

((They're coming back!)) Bahm said suddenly.

The guards had indeed returned, but they were staying far away from our cell door, as though afraid of us. This seemed strange, especially considering the confident, military poise they had shown while leading us to our cell. Not to mention that I could still think of no logical reason why they would have abandoned their post in the first place.

I discounted their odd behavior as irrelevant, for now. It was time to put our escape plan into action. I quickly stepped forward, and spoke with my Kelbrid voice. It was a new sensation, to speak without a mouth or tongue, but my Kelbrid windpipe could subtly contract, shaping the sounds that I could produce in my diaphragm. "Guards!" I shouted urgently. "You must release us from this cell! Something very wrong is going on!"

"No, wait, don't release them!" Doua cried, speaking with Jake's voice. "They are the _kuldir_! They've done something to us! They . . . they've switched their bodies with ours so they can escape! Don't trust them! They're _kuldir_!"

"No, we're not!" Prince Jake yelled indignantly. "Just look at us! We're Kelbrid! They're _kuldir_, and they're trying to trick you! Let us out of here, now!"

"No, let _us_ out!" Zu pleaded. "Whatever they've done to us, please, you have to help us! Don't leave us in here, like this!"

"Don't believe them! Switching bodies, what a ridiculous lie!" Marco scoffed.

It was working. The guards looked back and forth, from one group to the other, in confusion.

"Please," Zu pleaded. "Please don't leave us in here. Who knows what else they might do to us?"

"You cannot possibly believe these liars!" I shot back. "If you release them, it will be you who is in danger!"

There was a pause, as the guards seemed to consider both sides. Then, in a sudden movement, Bahm lashed out with his Andalite tail. His blade stopped, quivering, inches from Prince Jake's throat. "I would suggest you tell them the truth, _kuldir_, if you value your lives," Doua said menacingly.

Prince Jake froze for a moment, shocked. When he recovered, he realized he had no choice except to tell the guards what the Kelbrid wanted to hear. "Alright! I admit it. We're the _kuldir_. We switched bodies with these Kelbrid. Please, don't kill me!"

The rest of us reluctantly acknowledged the truth of Prince Jake's statement. Satisfied, Bahm lowered his tail.

With the matter apparently settled, the guards cautiously released our Kelbrid friends. The door opened, and the guards escorted the four of them out of our cell, holding the rest of us at bay with their staffs. The door closed behind them, locking us in once more. No sooner were the Kelbrid free, than did Vuhl screech a red-tailed cry of triumph, and Bahm, catching the nearest guard by surprise, hit her in the side of the head with his tail. All four of them bolted down the corridor, out of our sight, with the guards following in hot pursuit.

"They tricked us!" I heard a guard shout. "Payon, you stay back and let those poor Kelbrid out of that cell. The rest of you, after those _kuldir_!"

It is lucky that I did not possess a human mouth. If I had, I believe I would have smiled.

* * *

Hah! I finally updated! Since this one counts as an extra, I now owe three updates.

Note: I will henceforth be putting author's notes _after_ each chapter. I'll probably update previous chapters to match whenever I get bored.

Once again, I have to say thank you to all my wonderful reviewers. But I have to give a special shout-out to Mind The Green Bits. Thank you for the many wonderful, insightful reviews! I hope you keep reading this story, and continue to give such good feedback! I'm glad you like my ideas about the Kelbrid so much; I'm quite fond of them, too.

P.S. Everyone keep reviewing! Every review I get makes my writer's block go away a little more. At this rate, I should be cured soon!


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23 (Tobias)

The moment the glass door opened, we ran for it. We blew past the bewildered guard before she even had time to realize what had happened.

"What the- They're all _kuldir_! All of them! Don't let any of them get away!" she screamed to the other guards. I heard the clicking of claws as the other guards came running through the corridors towards us.

I bolted away from the guard, flapping my Kelbrid wings for extra speed as I ran.

Down corridors we ran, flying around corners, guided only by some general, vague sense of the way we had come.

((Ax!)) I yelled, spotting something that looked like a computer console at the end of a corridor. ((There's a computer down there. See if it tells us where Santorelli and the others are!))

Ax took off down the corridor I'd indicated. ((I may require a distraction,)) he said as he reached the console and accessed the controls.

The guards had now had enough time to figure out what was happening, and to get organized. A trio of Kelbrid Warriors were coming for us, staffs in hand. If we had to fight them, we wouldn't last two seconds. They had more experience, they had weapons, and they were bigger than us.

I decided to try a gamble. I ran down the corridor, straight at them. They kept running, straight at me.

((Tobias, are you insane?)) Marco shouted at me.

As we were just about to collide, one of the guards swung her staff at me. The staff made a sinister buzzing sound, as if it would electrocute me if it touched me. But I leapt into the air, missing the staff, and beat my wings for altitude. I was flying! Right over the guards' heads! My momentum carried me over them before anyone could react, and I landed on the other side and kept running.

I now had their attention. The trick now was to keep it. I began to demorph as I ran. Just enough so that my form started to shift and melt.

"What is it doing?" one of them shrieked as they watched me. They were now chasing me, and, unfortunately, they were catching up quick.

"Kill it, kill it!" another yelled, swinging her staff furiously at me. Her staff was making that buzzing noise again, and I could feel the wind from it every time she swung at me. It was only a matter of time before-

"Aaaiiih!" I yelled, my Kelbrid voice making my scream sound alien, even to my ears. I'd been hit! An electric shock ran through me from where the staff had hit my arm, and my body seized up in pain. I fell, sliding forward before the friction of the floor could cancel my momentum.

((Tobias!)) Jake shouted. ((Are you alright?))

I tried to get up. But the guard who'd hit me was slamming me with her staff, again and again, each blow wracking me with pain.

"Aaaaaiiiigh!" I screamed again, in a voice that was part Kelbrid and part hawk.

"Filthy, diseased, ugly, horrid _kuldir_!" the guard was screaming. "What have you done to those Kelbrid?"

((I have found the required information,)) Ax said from the computer console. ((But we must hurry. There are protocols to barricade the exit in the event of an emergency. I have overriden them for now, but my there are backup systems that I cannot penetrate. In approximately thirty minutes, we will no longer be able to escape.))

((Can you open all the cell doors? Or at least the one where Santorelli and the others are being kept?)) Marco asked.

Ax paused for a moment. ((No,)) he finally said, frustration in his voice, ((I cannot access individual cell blocks from here.))

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden movement. Another Kelbrid was attacking the guards! The Kelbrid that had been pummelling me turned towards the new threat. I seized the opportunity to get to my feet, and took off running. I was out of there!

((Thanks, Jake,)) I said as I glanced over my shoulder to see him, now running the other direction, with two of the guards in hot pursuit. One of the guards chasing Jake had a deep slash in her wing. The third guard glanced at Jake, but then took off running after me.

Jake had distracted the guards. And, in doing so, he'd most likely just saved my life. Not that it was the first time he'd done something like that for me, but I have to admit, it made me start to reconsider whether I should still be mad at him for something that happened three years ago.

But there was no time to worry about that now. I had to get back to the others. And I had to lose the guard that was still tailing me.

I ran down a side corridor, hoping to go around the guards, to get back to my friends. I rounded a corner, then another. I suddenly saw another group of guards, but too late to hide. They saw me, and immediately gave chase. I turned, darted down another corridor. How was I going to get back to my friends? How was I to keep from getting lost in this maze?

And, most importantly, how was I supposed to stay alive while doing so?

As I ran and turned, swerving through the maze of hallways, the guards were getting ever closer. I needed a way to lose them, and fast. They were forcing me farther and farther from my friends with each passing moment.

Maybe, I thought, if I couldn't lose them as a Kelbrid, I could lose them as a hawk.

I jumped into the air, pumping my wings to keep me moving, and focused on my hawk form as I flew. My blade-feathers softened into actual feathers, as they changed color from grey to brown. The corridor grew more spacious around me as I shrank. My arms retracted into my chest. My head changed shape, my beak grew, and my vision intensified as hawk eyes replaced Kelbrid vision.

And it turned out I was right. As a hawk, I could fly faster than the guards could run. But not for long. Flapping for speed in dead air was hard work, and I was already tired from the exertion of morphing in mid-air. I had maybe five minutes before I had to either slow down or collapse. And then the guards would catch me.

((Ax? Marco? Jake?)) I called, hoping they could hear me. Nothing. They were out of thought-speak range. ((Doua? Vuhl?)) I tried vainly. Of course, there was no response. If they'd demorphed, as had been the plan, they wouldn't have been able to hear me, anyway.

I was on my own. Lost, exhausted, and alone.

* * *

Sorry for the long hiatus. Life's been busy. But here's hoping that the next few updates come quicker.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24 (Marco)

((Five minutes remain,)) Ax said with unnerving calm.

We were running. Still running down the same, endless, twisting corridor that we had been trapped in for the past who-knows-how-long. It felt like forever, even though it can't have been any longer than twenty-five minutes. Everything seems to slow down when you're counting your life second by second.

But we weren't running towards the exit. Jake was leading us deeper into the labyrinth. He was still clinging to the futile hope that we could rescue Santorelli, Menderash, and Jeanne.

There have been only a handful of times that I have doubted my best friend's leadership, but this was one of those times.

((Jake, we have to get out, now! It's now or never!)) I shouted at him impatiently. I couldn't understand why he was doing this. He _knew_ that we didn't have time to find, let alone rescue, the others. We'd spent too long losing the guards, and now we were left with no choice but to get out while we still could. Why was he making it so difficult?

((No!)) he lashed back at me stubbornly. ((We are not leaving until we find Santorelli, Jeanne, and Menderash. And we are not leaving without Tobias!)) It was easy to hear the desperation in his voice. Even he didn't believe what he was saying.

I wanted to slap him. I had _known_ something like this would happen. I had even tried to warn him. While we were still on earth, Jake had said to me that he wanted a second chance to lead, and that this time, he wasn't going to make mistakes. I had answered that that wasn't going to happen. I believe my exact words were, "Surprise: You're not a god."

Apparently, he hadn't been listening.

And now he was so determined not to let anything go wrong, not to make a mistake, that he couldn't see the obvious. The mistake had already been made.

This wasn't about whether we should heroically risk our lives to help our comrades. It wasn't even about the _risk_. If we stayed in here long enough to find the others, we would be trapped. Game over. End of story.

Save a few people, or lose everyone? It was the sort of decision Jake had made dozens of times before. But now, with three years of peace behind him, three years for his conscience to be eaten away by self-doubt, he was paralyzed.

((Four minutes, Prince Jake,)) Ax said.

((Shut up, shut up, I KNOW!)) Jake roared, his patience snapping. ((TOBIAS! WHERE ARE YOU?!)) he called out with all his strength.

I flapped my wings a couple times so that I was out in front of Jake. Then I turned around, so that I was facing him, and stopped.

I slapped him.

((Grow up,)) I said. ((This is not a fairy tale, okay? Nothing ever turns out perfect. You should know that by now. _You_ will never be perfect. You've just got to make the best decisions you can, and deal with it. _Deal_ with it, Jake!))

((Don't lecture me,)) he snapped. ((I'm the leader, not you.))

((No, Jake,)) I shot back, letting him know he couldn't intimidate me. ((Not when you act like this, you're not.))

((Are you challenging my authority?!)) Jake demanded.

((No, I'm not. I'm revoking it. You can't make this decision. You've attached too much of your own emotional baggage to it. So I'm making it for you. We're turning around. Now.))

((What?! You can't do that!))

((Three minutes,)) Ax said.

((Yes, I can,)) I said. With that, I turned around, and started walking the other way. Jake would follow me. I knew he would. He may be stubborn, but he knows when I'm right.

I looked over my shoulder, just to make sure. He was just standing there, looking back and forth. At me, then down the empty corridor. I stopped, waited. Ax was caught between the two of us, standing between me and Jake, hesitant. Would Ax follow his prince, even when his prince was wrong?

Finally, Ax made his decision. He walked toward me. ((Jake, you are my prince, but I believe that Marco is correct. We must escape. The others . . . Tobias and Menderash, at least, would understand.))

Wordlessly, Jake followed me and Ax. I expected him to seem relieved that the responsibility of a hard decision had been taken away from him, or even angry that he'd lost an argument to me. But he just seemed . . . empty. Deflated. Like a kid whose childhood dream had just been crushed.

Of course, as I very well knew, Jake's childhood dreams had already been smashed to pieces, a long time ago.

((Come on, hurry!)) I prodded. ((There's not much time!))

((Two minutes,)) Ax added.

All three of us took off running, suddenly desperate to put as much distance between ourselves and this horrible underground dungeon as we could.

And I prayed that we weren't already too late.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25 (Jake)

We made it out of the Kelbrid prison without further incident. I almost wish we hadn't. I almost wish we'd been caught, trapped, even killed, just so long as I didn't have to deal with the fact that we'd made it out, when Tobias, Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash _didn't_.

Marco, Ax and I, the survivors, spread our wings and flew from the mouth of that cursed cave. I looked back to watch the thick glass door slam shut behind me, mere seconds later. Marco was right. We'd only barely had enough time to get ourselves out. If we had stayed to find the others, we would have all been trapped.

My fault. It was all my fault. I hadn't come up with a better plan to get Menderash, Jeanne, and Santorelli out. And then I'd let Tobias distract that guard, let him get separated from the rest of us.

Had Tobias, at least, made it out? Maybe. Doubtful. But maybe. I had to hold on to that hope. There wouldn't be another chance for escape, if he was still trapped down there . . . if he was still even alive . . .

We kept flying. We flapped hard for altitude, and landed on the lip of the canyon. The endless vista of Kelbrid grassland stretched out before us.

We were now, if it were possible, even more lost than before. Miles and miles away from civilization, on a planet where civilization was hardly better than wilderness. And with only three of us left, it was hard to have any confidence in our chances.

Marco and Ax looked imploringly at me. Oh, sure. _Now_ they wanted me to be their leader. Now that Jeanne, and Menderash, and Santorelli, and maybe even Tobias, were . . .

Oh god. They were trapped down there. And it was my fault. All my fault. If only-

((Jake? You okay?)) Marco asked.

((I- I- )) I stuttered, trying to think of what to do. Think, Jake! What would we normally have done, during the war, if we were lost somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and needed to get our bearings? Surely that sort of thing had happened to us before. What did we do?

When the answer finally came to me, it seemed so obvious. ((Demorph. Go to bird of prey morphs.)) That should have been the very first thing I thought of. Apparently I was more rattled than I thought. Could I still even make decisions, when I was this messed up?

Marco was still giving me a concerned look. Like he was trying to decide if I was okay or not. But I guess he decided that birds of prey was the way to go.

We all demorphed. Rather than morphing again, we just stood there for a minute. Two humans, and an Andalite, alone on a planet where none of us belonged. We just stood there, catching our breath.

Then we morphed. A peregrine falcon, an osprey, and a northern harrier took off into the sky. We caught a thermal, rising up over the canyon, and rode it up as high as it would take us. It was wonderful. How long had it been since I'd flown like this? Years? No. I'd been in falcon morph when I'd last seen Cassie, and that had been mere months ago. Had it really been that recent? It felt like a lifetime ago.

Earth felt so far away, right then. As if my home, the life I'd lived for the past three years, and Cassie, didn't even exist. They didn't exist and they never had.

War, hard decisions, and solitude were all that was left.

Was this really the life I had wanted?

My thoughts were briefly interrupted as I spotted a group of maybe half a dozen Kelbrid off in the distance. They were flying higher than we were, but they were too far away to see us.

I'd already begun to bank away from them, when I suddenly recognized Vuhl. As I looked harder, I realized that three of the others were Bahm, Zu, and Doua. But the last one . . . was that another Vuhl?

I gasped with shock when my weary brain finally put it together. ((Tobias!)) I shouted with joy. ((You made it!))

((Jake?)) he asked, looking around. Then, after a moment's hesitation, ((Who else made it?))

((Marco and Ax,)) I answered. (( . . . You didn't happen to find Santorelli and the others . . . did you?)) I asked hesitantly. Knowing perfectly well that I was clinging to a false hope.

((No,)) Tobias replied, sudden contempt in his voice. ((I thought _you_ were taking care of that! Are they still . . . ))

((We had no choice, Tobias,)) I defended pathetically. ((It was either lose them, or lose everyone!))

((Oh, and I haven't heard that line before!)) Tobias cried. There was a beat of tense silence, before he added, ((That's exactly the attitude that got Rachel-))

((Tobias, chill!)) Marco interrupted quickly, before Tobias's words could hit home with me. Too late.

((Arguing won't do any good now!)) Marco continued. ((Look, we're all upset. Santorelli, Jeanne, Menderash . . . they were good people, okay? None of us is happy to leave them behind. But they're tough. I mean, Menderash is an Andalite, and we all know that Andalites aren't to be taken lightly, nothlit or otherwise. And Jeanne took on two very tough Kelbrid in her very first battle. They'll be okay. Heck, if we made it out of there, maybe they will, too.))

((I don't believe this!)) Tobias raged. ((All of you, you're just acting like there's nothing we can do! We have to go back for them!))

((And do what?)) Marco asked. ((You have some brilliant plan, bird-boy?))

((We can't do _nothing_!)) Tobias shouted.

((Well, then, come up with _something_!)) Marco shouted back.

Everyone was at each others' throats. My head was pounding, until I couldn't think. We were lost, didn't know what to do, and three team members down. And I wasn't sure I was even still fit to lead.

It was just too much.

"TSEEEEER!" I screamed. I folded my wings back, and plummeted toward the ground.

((Jake! What are you doing? Cut it out,)) Tobias snapped authoritatively.

I came out of the dive, flapping my wings to cancel some momentum as I leveled out my flight.

((Let's just calm down and think logically here,)) Tobias said, a little more gently. He sounded worried for me, as if I'd scared him, but at that point, I didn't even care. _Thank god_, I thought. _Someone else is taking charge._

((We should head back to the city, I think,)) Tobias continued, still watching me warily.

((What? Why?)) I blurted, still a little out of it. Man, my mind just didn't want to focus on reality.

((That is where we are most likely to find a ship,)) Ax said, immediately catching on.

((Right,)) Marco agreed. ((The question is, how to get a ship off this freakin' planet. I highly doubt we can just walk up and ask for one.))

((Well, we have Kelbrid morphs, don't we? Maybe it really is just as simple as walking up and asking for a ship.))

((Tobias, Tobias, Tobias,)) Marco sighed. ((How long have you been an Animorph? It's _never_ that simple. And the simpler it seems, the more complicated it ends up being.))

They went on for a while, but I just kind of zoned out. For once, I was glad to be left out of the conversation. I just listened, as Tobias, Marco, and Ax discussed plans, problems, possible solutions, and the occasional random side note.

((Do you think _piroth_ would taste good on food?)) Marco wondered randomly. ((I mean, it just seems like it should be a seasoning, you know?))

((Yes! That is a wonderful idea!)) Ax said excitedly. ((_Thywer_ would be delicious on a cinnamon bun!)) Then I guess he was embarrassed about his outburst, because he fell silent for a moment. Then I heard him whisper, (( . . . cinnamon bun)) in a voice full of blissful nostalgia. Something told me he hadn't meant to say it out loud. Marco sniggered.

((Can we please stay on track here?)) Tobias said with exasperation. It suddenly struck me how well he had fallen into my role. He sounded just like me.

I had noticed how quickly Tobias had dropped the issue of rescuing Santorelli and the others. I wasn't quite sure what to think of that. Had he simply given up arguing? Was he planning to try something on his own? Or had he realized that we were right, and we had no choice but to leave the others behind?

After a while, we needed to demorph. Doua and the other Kelbrid seemed grateful for the chance to land and rest their wings. Tobias and Ax morphed to human so they could talk to the Kelbrid, and the eight of us just walked along the grassy savannah for a while.

It was good to just walk. We talked to the Kelbrid, who had been left out of our previous, thought-speak conversation.

As for me, I didn't contribute much of anything. My legs kept moving, and my eyes were open, but inside, I was long gone. Numb and blind to everything around me. Worlds away from my friends, lost in a place that didn't even exist outside of my own mind.

* * *

Greetings, true believers! I'm finally back to writing after my latest bout of Epic Writer's Block. Sorry to keep everyone in suspense for so very long (being in Geology field camp for the past six weeks may have had something to do with it, but I had writer's block on this story before that). As a bonus for waiting this long, I've got two chapters for you guys.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back to regular writing soon. I'm going to New Zealand for a few weeks next weekend, but I should be back with another chapter after I get back.

I'm probably going to drop the pretense of "chapters for reviews," because I just can't keep up anymore. Keep writing reviews, though, in case they inspire me to get back in the groove of writing again. Or maybe just write them because you want to review my story. I don't care why, just review!

And thank you, once again, for all the great reviews. I was glad to come back to see such well-thought-out comments from everyone!

Now, to answer a few of them:

lolioe: There's a reason I'm focusing on the Kelbrid in this story. And that is that they will be featured heavily in my book 57. So I want people to have enough background on them that they know what's going on.

That's a good point about Tobias not going public with his hunger. But, in all honesty, it was down to that, or him starving. I think he would ask for help before he starved.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26 (Tobias)

As we all walked along, I started to tune out the conversation, which was mostly just a logistical debate between Marco and the Kelbrid at this point anyway. I looked up at the scarred, blasted Kelbrid moon, hanging high in the sky. That moon had been haunting my thoughts ever since I had first laid eyes on it. I couldn't stop wondering . . .

"What happened up there?" I finally asked.

Zu looked at me, then looked up. The others all followed suit, until all of the Animorphs and all of the Kelbrid were staring up at the desolate brown orb hanging in the sky.

After a moment, Doua said, "That is not a tale for _kuldir_ to hear."

"Why not?" Marco said, curiosity in his tone. "What's the big secret?"

Doua looked angry. "You would not understand such things, _kuldir_. We have reasons for keeping certain things secret."

"Of course," Marco snapped with savage sarcasm. "You're the high and mighty Kelbrid, and we're just little ignorant _kuldir_. We couldn't possibly understand anything as complex as _shame_ and _guilt_."

Leave it to Marco to figure out the real reason why the Kelbrid were so intent on keeping whatever happened on that charred moon a secret.

Doua swept her wings forward menacingly. "Do not pass judgment on what you do not know!"

"Then tell us!" Jake snapped, obviously getting impatient with the whole argument. I was surprised. That was the first thing I had heard him say in the past several hours, at least. To be honest, I hadn't thought he was even still listening. But perhaps he was as curious about that moon as the rest of us were.

"No," Bahm said. "It is not _right_. No _kuldir_ has ever known the secret, and we do not intend to change that now."

"Maybe, just maybe, us _kuldir_ might have dark pasts and guilty secrets, too," I said quietly. "Maybe, just maybe, we can understand this one tiny part of each other."

Zu looked doubtful. He seemed to be torn between wanting to believe what we were saying, and what he had always known to be true. Finally, he shook his head. "No, we can't. Not this." He pointed up at the moon. "See that? That is the very reason we don't trust _kuldir_. That is the reason we must always assume that we do not understand. We thought we could understand _kuldir_ once." He paused for a moment, as if trying to find words. Finally, he simply said, "We were mistaken."

"Sounds a little like an Andalite I heard about once," I said. Ax looked sideways at me.

"This is a familiar story," I clarified. "One guy trusts the wrong people, and then a whole race blames themselves for the results? Seerow did the same thing. And the only reason I'm not citing a human example," I added quickly when I noticed Ax glaring at me, "is because humans have done something like that too many times to count."

"It isn't like that," Vuhl said, finally speaking up. "It wasn't just one person, or just one mistake."

There was a beat of silence as we all waited for Vuhl to go on, and she didn't.

"Come on. Can it really be so dangerous just to tell us?" Marco prodded. "What's the harm?"

"How can you not know the harm of a misunderstanding?" Doua asked disbelievingly.

"How can you be so afraid of misunderstandings that you're never even willing to _try_ to overcome them?" Marco retorted.

"You only say that because-" Doua started, but Bahm held up his hand, silencing her.

"Maybe . . . maybe they're right," Bahm said heavily. As if those were the hardest words he'd ever said. "Maybe this is something we can share. Perhaps even something we _should_." He looked to Zu. Doua and Vuhl followed suit, looking at Zu. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Zu was the best one to tell this story. We Animorphs leaned forward to hear, as Zu looked up at the moon.

"The moon is called Lethon," Zu began. "The inhabitants called themselves the Leth. This was a long time ago, when the Kelbrid were still a primitive race. Not even capable of space flight. The Leth, however, were capable of very limited space travel. But they could only reach Kelbri at the closest point in their orbit. So they visited us, once every lunar year.

"What the Leth did not know was that they carried a disease, harmless to them, but deadly to Kelbrid. We did not realize the danger until they were gone, and we began to die. But we survived, and recovered. And then the Leth came again.

"We tried to tell them to leave us alone, but we spoke different languages. They didn't understand why we seemed to hate them, and we didn't understand why they were killing us. They left, and more Kelbrid died of disease. The next year, we strived to learn their language. But it made little difference. The Leth believed that it was our own hatred of them that was killing us, and that we had to learn to accept our differences to survive. Much later, we learned that the Leth were particularly sensitive to strong emotions, so they actually could be killed by negative emotions like hatred and intolerance. And they had simply assumed that we worked the same way.

"But we did not know this at the time. We believed that they were evil, because they were killing us and then trying to blame us for our own deaths. And they believed that we were closed-minded and stupid for not seeing the real reason that we were dying. We could not understand them, and they could not understand us. But it was the Kelbrid who suffered for it.

"Again and again, they came, thinking they were helping us. Many Kelbrid died. But our encounters with the Leth forced us to develop new technologies. Weapons. We still did not understand that the Leth were not malevolent. We invented weapons to fight them.

"We eventually developed an immense pulse laser, inspired by technology that the Leth had. We . . . the Kelbrid of long ago . . . used this weapon to exterminate the Leth."

There was a sharp intake of breath. So that was the big secret. Genocide. No wonder the moon still felt tainted, even after all these years.

We were all silent for a moment or two, taking in the terrible truth. An entire planet, destroyed. A worldwide holocaust. All for a simple misunderstanding.

"That . . . is a terrible tale," Ax said heavily, breaking the silence. "But, as Tobias mentioned earlier, it is not unique. All races have some terrible shame."

"It's more than that," Zu said slowly, uncertainly. "Ever since the Leth . . . the Kelbrid have been different than they were before. It's not just that we don't trust _kuldir_. It's almost as if we can't. As if it's part of our nature to fear those that are different."

Suddenly, with a tiny shiver, I realized I knew what Zu was talking about. I recalled my experience morphing Vuhl. I remembered the Kelbrid instincts I had felt. That ingrained fear of the unknown, the overpowering hatred of anything that wasn't Kelbrid.

"But why . . . " Marco began, thinking.

But Ax got it. "Evolution," he said simply. "The Kelbrid that trusted the Leth, those that befriended those that were different, so to speak, were the ones that were most susceptible to the disease. Those Kelbrid were eliminated from the population. The ones that were left-"

"-were the ones that feared difference," Marco finished. "So now, that fear and hatred is encoded in their very most basic instincts. Almost literally beaten into them after all those years."

We all fell silent again. It was a lot to take in. The holocaust of Lethon, and then this bizarre twist in the Kelbrid's own evolution. We all just walked on in silence, thinking. Absorbing the shock.

Before, we had resented the Kelbrid. Understandable, of course, as they had seemed to resent us. But now . . . it wasn't fair to hate them, was it? They didn't really have a choice. They were only following their instincts. Doing what they had evolved to do, being what they were supposed to be. What more could anyone, even a sentient race, do?

But what about Doua and the others? They were defying not only their culture, but their own evolution, their very DNA. How could that be possible?

I looked wonderingly at Vuhl, trying to figure out how she did it, how she fought the instincts that had so easily overpowered me when I'd morphed her. She felt my gaze, and met my look with her own, unreadable eyes. And I knew, right then, that both of us still had a lot to learn.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27 (Ax)

Sometimes I think I know my human friends somewhat better than I would like to. For I knew exactly what they all were thinking, right at that moment when we learned of the Kelbrid's great secret.

And they were wrong. The Kelbrid were no more pitiable now than they were a moment ago. As a matter of fact, this new information changed nothing. The Kelbrid's past, even their genetic lineage, did not excuse them for being what they were. For that is the true gift of sentient beings, to choose one's own actions, regardless of one's instincts and predispositions.

But sentience is a curse, as well, for it means that you have nothing to blame but yourself for the person that you are.

I glanced at Zu, walking along at the back of our group, staring up at the sky, and I realized that I was beginning to feel a deep respect for our four Kelbrid friends. After all, just because sentience gives us the ability to change our nature, does not imply that it is easy. Something that I knew personally from my time spent on earth. Doua and her crew had fought a hard battle, no doubt, to turn against their own nature in favor of what they thought was right.

Part of me wondered why. Why did they do it? Why did they side with us, aliens that they had only known for barely a week? Why did they turn against their people to set us free, when one of us was an Andalite, their enemy?

After a while, the sun began to set, with the Kelbrid city still nowhere in sight. We kept walking, until, as Marco disgustedly put it, "We're lost on an alien planet, it's too dark to see our freakin' feet, and we're probably still miles away from what passes for civilization around here. Just tell me there aren't any giant monsters around here that come out at night. Because if anything keeps me from getting a _fantastic_ night's sleep tonight, it will wish it had never been born."

((Someone's grumpy,)) Tobias pointed out, then groaned. ((Don't complain. At least you're used to sleeping on the ground. I haven't seen a single tree on this whole planet! If I have to sleep on flat ground, my bird instincts are going to drive me nuts.)) He then fluttered up to try to perch on one of the tan, rod-like plants. The plant bowing over under his weight, he said, ((Well, crap, that isn't going to work.))

((You may perch on my shoulder,)) I offered. ((Since I sleep standing up, it would be no trouble.))

((Thanks, Ax-man, but no thanks. I've heard you snore,)) he responded with a laugh. I sensed he was merely making an excuse to decline my offer, but I said nothing about it. Tobias won't often take favors from others, unless he is in desperate need. He flew off, then disappeared into the grass.

I wasn't ready to sleep just yet. I stared up at the stars, wondering if I could still see the Andalite home world from this planet. It took some time, since the constellations looked different when viewed from such a different angle, but I found it.

I thought about my home, my people. And, once again, I wondered what that truly meant. Was my home on the Andalite home world, or on earth? Were my true people the Andalites, or the humans?

After a while, I thought about Menderash. He had been a good first officer. He was brave, honorable, and, above all, loyal. So loyal that he had become a _nothlit_ to save me, his prince.

I straightened my posture and put my fist against my chest, raising my tail high in a battle stance. ((In dedication to your prince, you met a noble end,)) I began, in private thought-speak so as not to wake the others. I was performing the ritual of remembrance. I was saying it for Menderash, but also for Prince Jake's human friends who had been left behind, as well.

((In service of the people, your sacrifice brought freedom to all.)) I spread my arms wide.

((Your duty is ended, your honor endures. Fulfilled in life, now find peace in spirit,)) I finished, looking towards the sky with all four eyes. I relaxed, and contemplated the words of the ritual.

The ritual of remembrance is intended for fallen warriors. Perhaps, I thought, it was not appropriate for Menderash, Jeanne, and Santorelli, who were not yet dead. But I felt that they should be honored, somehow. Since there is no ritual for imprisoned warriors, I used the most appropriate ritual I knew.

And . . . well, the ugly truth was, we had in effect sentenced Menderash and the others to death. They would either remain imprisoned until their natural death, or, quite possibly, now that we had escaped, they would be terminated.

The thought made me ill. It is an awful feeling, knowing that you are alive at someone else's expense. The guilt eats away at you, absorbs your every thought. I knew. I had felt it before.

Just before we parted ways, Menderash had said to me that, if it came down to it, I should leave him behind rather than risk recapture. He had known the plan, and saw it falling apart before it even started. And he was willing to stay behind to give us a better chance at freedom.

Menderash was, indeed, a true Andalite. There are few honors as great as to sacrifice oneself for one's prince.

After a while, my thoughts began to drift towards sleep. Right as I was about to close my eyes for the night, I noticed what appeared to be a meteorite. In any case, it a bright speck of light that was quickly falling towards the ground, what humans call a 'shooting star.' Suddenly, as if it knew I had seen it, it stopped dead in the sky! All four of my eyes snapped wide open in disbelief. It was impossible! Then, the point of light began to shrink, getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the black abyss of space.

((What was that?)) I wondered to myself, bewildered. But the only answer that came was the heavy breathing of my sleeping friends.

* * *

Hai, everyone! I'm back from New Zealand, and I think I'm finally back in the groove of writing again. Thanks for all the reviews, once again. Now for a few answers.

TalkoftheTown4eva: Thank you. And yes to both questions. The Yeerks will be reappearing in book 56, and the One in book 57.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28 (Marco)

Against all odds, I managed to get a fantastic night's sleep after all.

Until, that is, Ax woke us all up at God-only-knows-o'-clock in the morning. Apparently, he _hadn't_ gotten such a fantastic night's sleep. Once we were all more or less awake (in my case, less), he anxiously told us all what he had seen.

"A shooting star?" I asked groggily. "What did you wish for?"

"This is serious," Jake scolded me. "Shooting stars don't just stop in mid-air. Something's going on, here."

Our commotion had apparently woken up the Kelbrid, because Vuhl responded, "Yes, something is going on. I saw it too. But, of course, that was no star. It was a piece of the One. It is beginning to re-form itself."

"What? But didn't we destroy the One?" I asked, confused.

"No," Doua snorted impatiently. "Were you not listening when we first met? You only disrupted its energy signature."

"Ah, right, of course," I retorted. It really didn't surprise me at all that I had no recollection of that particular lecture. I have a tendency not to listen when people start talking about energy signatures.

"If I may, there has been a question on my mind for some time now," Ax said, changing the subject. He was in human morph again, so that he could talk to the Kelbrid. "That is, why did the One release me?"

I could swear I saw Vuhl flinch when Ax said that. As if he'd mentioned something that she didn't want to remember. "It happens occasionally," she began. "If you were the One's last victim . . . if you resist enough . . . if you haven't been fully pulled into the dream-state yet . . . " she trailed off, losing her thread.

"Then you can ride the matter-energy reflux pulse when the One is dispersed, and get out," Bahm finished for her.

Ax nodded wisely, as if that made perfect sense to him. Then he looked at Vuhl and said, "You were taken, too, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was," Vuhl answered after a moment's pause. "It was only through luck that I escaped." She looked up, silent, at the sky. Remembering, I guess. Ax did the same. Maybe they were thinking about how close they had both come to being trapped in the One forever.

It was my job to break the reverie. "Okay, well, that's great and all, but the point is, you both made it out. Kudos on not being dissolved into individual molecules, but that's in the past. The One isn't our problem right now." I pointed at a silvery glint on the horizon. "There's the city. We need to get there, and get off this godforsaken planet," I said. "No offense," I added, with a glance at Doua.

"Right," Jake said with a nod, trying to look authoritative.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" I asked. "Just morph Kelbrid and ask for a ship?"

"That . . . ought to work," Bahm said hesitantly. I looked at him in surprise, not at all expecting that our 'plan,' which was really more of a running joke than a plan, might actually have merit. Bahm went on, "If the ship-builders believe you to be us, you might be able to convince them that your ship was damaged beyond repair in this latest encounter with the One. Therefore, they would be obligated to provide you with another."

"Whoa, so you can just take a new ship whenever you feel like it? Free of charge?" I asked incredulously.

"Naturally," Doua said, as if that should be obvious. "Our mission to destroy the One is of great importance to the Kelbrid people. Therefore, we are provided with any equipment necessary for the job."

"Well, that's convenient for us," Jake said. "Okay, that's the plan, then. Let's move!"

We yawned, stretched, and headed toward the city once more.

I should have been happy. I mean, we were going home! But my mind kept pulling up a single, beautiful image.

_Jeanne._

It still didn't feel quite real. It didn't feel real that we were leaving three of our teammates behind. And Jeanne . . . I'd never even had the chance to get to know her.

_What have we done?_

* * *

Sorry for the ridiculous hiatus, everyone. Yes, I am in fact still alive, contrary to all the evidence. And I do still intend to finish this story, as well as the next two. But I got . . . distracted. You see, I'm currently working on a book series of my very own that I hope one day to publish. Keep an eye out for Elemaeus, coming probably-not-at-all-soon to a bookstore within a reasonable distance of you.

But that's not much of an excuse, from someone who has as much of a tendency as I do to leave projects unfinished anyway. So I guess what I'm saying is be patient. It may be months between chapters, but I will get this fanfic done if it's the last thing I do.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29 (Jake)

It didn't take as long as I'd feared it might to reach the city again. With our bird of prey morphs, we covered pretty good distance. It felt good, moving with a purpose, towards a goal.

It still felt like running away.

By the time night fell again, we were standing in the shadow of the outskirts of the city. The buildings were still, the Kelbrid citizens presumably asleep. Everything was quiet. Vuhl led us to the hangar, where we spotted the wrecked remains of the Blade Ship and the _Rachel_, nestled between ships of Kelbrid design. I could see that repairs had been made to both of them, but neither of them were in any condition to fly.

We spent a sleepless night waiting. We used our Kelbrid morphs so as not to alert any Kelbrid who might happen to be watching us. Nervously demorphing every two hours. Feeling exposed and vulnerable in the open, but with nowhere to hide between the open-air buildings.

Doua and the others had left, so that we wouldn't be identified as their doppelgangers, but they had promised to stay within hearing range should something go wrong and we needed back-up.

The plan was so ludicrously simple that it was making me paranoid. We would wait until morning, when the first hangar-workers would show up. Then we would just tell them that we needed a ship, and they would, presumably, give us one. Could it really be that simple? It was never that simple.

I spent the night going over every possible scenario. I couldn't afford another screw-up like the one that had gotten Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash trapped. So I had to be ready for anything. What if they saw through our lie? What if they realized who were were? Worse, what if they already knew we were here, and they were gathering their forces at the hangar at this very moment, waiting to attack?

What if we lost? What if I got someone else killed?

I noticed Marco watching me. His Kelbrid eyes were unreadable, but I knew him well enough to know what he must be thinking. He was wondering if I could still lead, after my breakdown in the prison. He and Ax would be the ones doing the talking, according to our plan, but I guess he must have been worried that I might screw something else up. Give a bad order in the midst of a battle. Get someone killed.

I didn't blame him. I was worrying about the same thing.

Dawn couldn't come soon enough. Worrying never accomplished anything. The only way to end the worry was action.

As the first pink light of dawn began to show on the horizon, we demorphed and remorphed one last time. No telling how long this might take, and we weren't going to take the risk.

As the sun rose, we finally entered the hangar. A pair of Kelbrid, one male, one female, trudged between the rows of ships, getting ready for a day's work. As we got closer to them, I noticed that their blades were lined with metallic blue. They saw us, quickly recognized us, and trotted towards us. "Doua!" the female exclaimed when she got close enough to me. "Vuhl! Zu, Bahm! How can we help you today?"

'Bahm' replied. "Our ship was damaged in our encounter with the One. We will require a new one."

The male cocked his head to the side, confused. "What are you talking about? Your ship is right here, fit to fly. We just finished running diagnostics on it." He pointed at a ship that did, indeed, look exactly like the one we had been brought to this planet in.

Marco quickly cut in, saving Ax from having to answer. "Ah, so you fixed it? Some of the controls were locking up, you see. But if that little problem is gone, then, we'll just be on our way."

That seemed to satisfy the female Kelbrid, but the male didn't quite seem convinced. He stared hard at Marco and Ax. Finally, he said, slowly and suspiciously, "What are our names?"

My heart leaped into my throat. They knew! They must have recieved news from the prison about what had happened there, and they knew to look out for anyone who looked like Doua's crew. This was exactly one of the scenarios I'd run in my head the night before.

And in my head, it had always ended in disaster.

Stupid stupid stupid! Why hadn't we just snuck in during the night and taken a ship, while nobody was watching? In retrospect, that risky plan now seemed the safer one.

Marco looked at Ax. Ax looked at Marco. But we all knew there was no way out of this one. No way to explain how we didn't know the names of two mechanics who clearly knew us.

Before they could do anything, I lunged at them, pumping my wings to lift me up so that I could bring my talons to bear, and yelled, "Attack!"


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30 (Ax)

The mechanics ran, knowing themselves outnumbered. They were obviously not trained warriors, as were all the Kelbrid we had fought before. Prince Jake called out orders in thought-speak, ((Ax and Marco, get us into one of those ships! Tobias, you and I are going after those two, try to catch them before they can call for back-up. Go!))

Prince Jake and Tobias took off after the fleeing mechanics, while Marco and I headed for the nearest ship, powering our wings for altitude to reach the hatch. As soon as we got there, I looked for a control pad to open it. I ran my hands over the hull of the ship, searching.

Nothing, nothing . . . there! My hands slid across a tiny groove in the metal, and I pried it open. Underneath the lid, there was an assortment of buttons and knobs, and a screen. I worked the controls, trying to find the code that would open the door. I deactivated the error message, and quickly hacked the system. The hatch opened.

((Hey, forget those two!)) Marco called to Prince Jake. ((Ax got the door open! Get in, get in!)) Prince Jake and Tobias turned around, abandoning their chase, and powered toward the ship. They reached us just as the first few Kelbrid warriors began to appear at the hangar door.

((Geez, they got here fast,)) Marco commented as he spotted them.

((They were probably expecting us,)) Tobias pointed out.

Marco and I flew inside the ship, with Prince Jake and Tobias close behind. I went immediately to the main controls of the ship, puzzling over the unfamiliar interface to find the controls for the hatch. I flipped a blue switch, and the hatch closed.

Marco was helping now to power up the ship, which made me a little uneasy. Where had he learned to fly a ship like this? I recalled that he had piloted Yeerk ships during the war, and that he had done fairly well for a human, but I wasn't sure I trusted a human behind controls that I myself barely understood.

Still, he seemed to know what he was doing. Perhaps he had learned a little about piloting alien craft in the years since the war. In any case, the ship was now hovering above the ground, and turning to face the exit. Which was, of course, rapidly closing.

((Ax!)) Prince Jake said shrilly, as though letting me hear his anxiety would cause me to work faster.

I pulled a lever.

FWOOOM!

The ship kicked forward, lunging at the closing opening.

As we blew past, I thought I saw other ships powering up and lifting off, ready to give chase as we tried to escape.

We dove, the belly of the ship nearly scraping the ground as we tried to fit into the opening below the hangar door.

SCREEEEEEEeeee . . .

The top of our ship scraped against the door, nearly stopping for a terrifying moment that must have felt much longer than it was, as I wondered whether the door might close with enough force to crush us. I turned a knob to give more thrust to the engines, and we powered through. We were free!

But now the door was opening again, and the other fighters were quickly catching up to us.

((Marco, take weapons,)) I ordered, indicating the area I believed the weapons controls to be. He saluted me and took the joystick.

I steered our ship for the nearest cluster of Kelbrid dwellings. We were all in the same model of ship, it seemed, so I reasoned that just as they wouldn't be able to outrun us in a straight chase, neither could we outrun them. So the trick would be to fly through areas that the Kelbrid would be hesitant to follow. I took advantage of the open design of the Kelbrid buildings, darting in and out of the open spaces, flying perilously close to walls, columns, and the occasional Kelbrid passerby. And it was working; the Kelbrid ships were slowing down, being far more careful than I not to hit their fellow citizens.

Perhaps this was a 'dirty' move, as a human might say. Perhaps I should have been more respectful of the lives of Kelbrid civilians, myself. But at that point, I was entirely too aggravated by all that their species had put me through to care.

"_Kuldir_, we order you to halt immediately!" came a voice over the ship's intercom. Prince Jake stepped forward and shut it off without even bothering with a response.

We flew for a long time, twisting and turning through the Kelbrid city, putting a little more distance between ourselves and our pursuers with each passing moment. We knew they wouldn't fire with so many Kelbrid citizens and structures so close, and they couldn't catch up to us for the same reason. There was nothing they could do except watch our ship getting slowly smaller in their viewscreen.

I had to admit that it felt very satisfying to finally see the Kelbrid rendered helpless against us. 'The tables had turned,' as the nonsensical human expression goes.

Once we had put enough distance between us and the Kelbrid ships to be out of their firing range, I angled upwards and we shot into the sky.

* * *

Once again, thanks for the reviews, everyone. I can't believe that some of you were still waiting for me to update after all this time. Your patience is unbelievable.

Stay tuned for the last chapter of book 55!


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31 (Zu)

We hovered behind the wall of a _piroth _market, listening for any sound from the hangar, but careful to keep out of sight. We could hear our _kuldir_ friends yell "Attack!" in Doua's voice. But Doua held us back from coming to their aid. "If they need us, they will say so," she said simply. "That is what we agreed."

So we watched from a distance as they stole a ship. Watched them fly it away from the hangar, chased by a fleet of pursuers. We tried to follow them as best we could, but even Kelbrid wings are no match for engines. So we watched their ship fade into the distance, and when it was a tiny silver speck at the edge of our vision, we saw it streak upward into the sky.

After a while, we saw the pursuers' ships drift slowly back toward the hangar, defeated.

The _kuldir_ were free. They were going back to their home.

I would miss them.

They had reminded me so much of _her_. That same stubborn defiance. That same unwillingness to be controlled. What had they called themselves? Humans? They even _looked _a little like the Trexions.

It was painful to remember, but it was a pain I welcomed. _She_ had been my everything. My Zo'axiel.

A _kuldir_.

Yet I had loved her. And she had felt the same for me.

I wondered if perhaps, just before they had dispersed the One, the humans had seen her. That monster seemed to love to show her off. Her sweet, beautiful, elfin visage, with that smooth, pale sea-green skin and those dark indigo eyes. Yes, she was beautiful.

She was so beautiful.

The other Kelbrid didn't understand. Doua, Vuhl, Bahm . . . they empathized with _kuldir_, saw them as more than just different, more than just the disease from which the word "_kuldir_" itself derived. But they still didn't understand how a _kuldir_ could ever be beautiful.

As I gazed, dreaming, at the clouds above, I noticed Vuhl already flying high above the rest of us. Reveling in the wings she had thought she had lost.

Bahm glanced at me and immediately guessed what I had been thinking about. He touched his wingtip to mine, a gesture of comfort. "We will destroy the One someday," he said. "And when we do, we will take back all the lives he has taken. We will save her."

I sighed, still looking skyward. I thought of the small winged creature that had been with the humans. There had been something about him, something about the way he talked, something about the way he carried himself when he was in Vuhl's form. Something familiar. Something that seemed almost a reflection of the way I felt.

He had lost someone, too.

"Maybe they were right," I said. "Maybe we aren't as different as we think we are."

* * *

And that marks the end of book 55! Thanks for sticking with me, all of you faithful reviewers. I hope you all enjoyed the ride.

We will be diving right into the next book, The Rebirth, with a triple update!


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